.  J 


BV  230  .M3  1852 

Maurice,  Frederick  Denison, 

1805-1872. 
The  Lord's  prayer 


/fS:^ 


^^    • 


i- 


*V' 


THE  LORD'S  PRAYER. 


NINE  SERMONS 


|5tEntliti[  in  tjjt  iCjinfitl  of  linrnlo's  3nn, 


w/ 


FREDERICK  DENISON  MAURICE,  M.A. 

CHAFLAIN  OF  LINCOLN'S  INN. 


FROM   THE   LONDON   EDITION,  REVISED. 


PHILADELPHIA: 

H.  HOOKER,  CORNER  OF  CHESTNUT  AND  EIGHTH  STS. 

1852. 


WM.  S.  TOUKG,  PHINTIR. 


THE  LOED^S  PEAYEE. 


SERMON  I. 


Sixtl)  Sunbaa  after  (Spipliana,  lebvmx^  13, 1848. 

After  this  manner  therefore  pray  ye:  'Our  Father  which  art  in 
heaven.' — Matt.  vi.  9. 

"  After  this  manner,"  and  therefore  any  manner 
but  this  is  a  wrong  manner ;  a  prayer  which  has 
any  other  principle  or  method  than  this,  is  not  the 
Lord's  Prayer. 

The  remark  may  seem  superfluous,  but  it  is  not 
so.  The  Paternoster  is  not,  as  some  fancy,  the 
easiest,  most  natural,  of  all  devout  utterances.  It 
may  be  committed  to  memory  quickly,  but  it  is 
slowly  learnt  by  heart.  Men  may  repeat  it  over 
ten  times  in  an  hour,  but  to  use  it  when  it  is  most 
needed,  to  know  what  it  means,  to  believe  it,  yea, 
not  to  contradict  it  in  the  very  act  of  praying  it, 
not  to  construct  our  prayers  upon  a  model  the 
most  unlike  it  possible,  this  is  hard;  this  is  one  of 
the  highest  gifts  which  God  can  bestow  upon  us ; 
nor  can  we  look  to  receive  it  without  others  that 
we  may  wish  for  less ;  sharp  suffering,  a  sense  of 
wanting  a  home,  a  despair  of  ourselves. 


4  SERMON  I. 

At  certain  periods  in  the  history  of  the  Church, 
especially  when  some  reformation  was  at  hand, 
men  have  exhibited  a  weariness  of  their  ordinary 
theological  teaching.  It  seemed  to  them  that  they 
needed  something  less  common,  more  refined  than 
that  which  they  possessed.  As  the  light  broke  in 
upon  them,  they  perceived  that  they  needed  what 
was  less  refined,  more  common.  The  Creed,  the 
Ten  Commandments,  the  Lord's  Prayer,  were  found 
to  contain  the  treasures  for  which  they  were  seek- 
ing. The  signs  of  such  a  period  are  surely  to  be 
seen  in  our  day.  We  can  scarcely  think  that  we 
require  reformation  less  than  our  fathers.  I  be- 
lieve, if  we  are  to  obtain  it,  we  too  must  turn  to 
these  simple  documents  ;  we  must  inquire  jvhether 
there  is  not  a  wisdom  hidden  in  them  which  we  do 
not  meet  with  elsewhere  ;  whether  they  cannot  in- 
terpret the  dream  of  our  lives  better  than  all  the 
soothsayers  whom  we  have  consulted  about  it 
hitherto. 

I.  Much  of  the  practical  diflSculty  of  the  prayer 
lies  assuredly  in  the  first  word  of  it.  How  can  we 
look  round  upon  the  people  whom  we  habitually 
feel  to  be  separated  from  us  by  almost  impassable 
barriers;  who  are  above  us,  so  that  we  cannot 
reach  them,  or'so  far  beneath  us,  that  the  slightest 
recognition  of  them  is  an  act  of  gracious  conde- 
scension ;  upon  the  people  of  an  opposite  faction 
to  our  own,  whom  we  denounce  as  utterly^evil ; 
upon  men  whom  we  have  reason  to  despise  ;  upon 
the  actual  wrong-doers  of  society,  those  who  have 
made  themselves  vile,  and  are  helping  to  make  it 


OUR  FATHER  WHICH  ART  IN  HEAVEN.      5 

vile :  and  then  teach  ourselves  to  think  that  in  the 
very  highest  exercise  of  our  lives,  these  are  asso- 
ciated with  us ;  that  when  we  pray,  we  are  praying 
for  them  and  with  them ;  that  we  cannot  speak  for 
ourselves  without  speaking  for  them ;  that  if  we  do 
not  carry  their  sins  to  the  throne  of  God's  grace, 
we  do  not  carry  our  own ;  that  all  the  good  we 
hope  to  obtain  there  belongs  to  them  just  as  much 
as  to  us,  and  that  our  claim  to  it  is  sure  of  being 
rejected,  if  it  is  not  one  which  is  valid  for  them 
also  ?  Yet  all  this  is  included  in  the  word  "Our :"  till 
we  have  learned  so  much,  we  are  but  spelling  at  it ; 
we  have  not  learned  to  pronounce  it.  And  what 
man  of  us — the  aptest  scholar  of  all — will  venture 
to  say  that  he  has  yet  truly  pronounced  it ;  that 
his  clearest  utterance  of  it  has  not  been  broken  and 
stammering  ?  Think  how  many  causes  are  at  work 
every  hour  of  our  lives  to  make  this  opening  word 
of  the  prayer  a  nullity  and  a  falsehood.  How 
many  petty  disagreements  are  there  between  friends 
and  kinsfolk,  people  dwelling  in  the  same  house — 
so  petty  that  there  is  no  fear  of  giving  way  to 
them,  and  yet  great  enough  to  cause  bitterness  and 
estrangement,  great  enough  to  make  this  "Our 
Father  "  a  contradiction.  How  often  does  my  va- 
nity come  into  collision  with  another  man's  vanity, 
and  then,  though  there  be  no  palpable  opposition 
of  interest  between  us,  though  we  do  not  stand  in 
the  way  of  each  other's  advancement,  what  a  sense 
of  separation,  of  inward  hostility,  follows  !  As  the 
mere  legal,  formal,  distinctions  of  caste  become 
less  marked,  how  apt  are  men  to  indemnify  them- 
1* 


b  SERMON  I. 

selves  for  that  loss  by  drawing  lines  of  their  own 
as  deep  and  more  arbitrary !  As  persecution  in 
its  ruder  shapes  becomes  impossible,  what  revenge 
does  the  disputatious  heart  take  under  this  depri- 
vation, by  bitter  manifestations  of  contempt  for  an 
adversary,  by  identifying  him  more  completely 
with  his  opinions,  by  condemning  him,  if  not  for 
them,  then  for  the  vehemence  and  bigotry  with 
which  he  supports  them  !  How  many  pretexts  have 
the  most  tolerant  amongst  us  for  intolerance  ! 
How  skilful  are  the  most  religious  in  finding  ways 
for  explaining  away  the  awful  command,  "  Judge 
not,  that  ye  be  not  judged  !" 

11.  But  when  we  say  "Father,"  are  we  more  in 
earnest  ?  Do  we  mean  that  He  whom  we  call  upon 
is  a  Father  actually,  not  in  some  imaginary  me- 
taphorical sense  ?  Alas,  in  stumbling  at  the  first 
word  "  Our,"  we  do,  I  fear,  destroy  the  next  also. 
For  though  all  countries  and  nations  had  a  dim 
vision  of  this  name  ;  though  men,  in  whom  the  re- 
verence for  fathers  had  any  strength,  were  taught 
by  a  higher  wisdom  than  their  own,  to  connect  that 
reverence  with  their  thoughts  of  the  unseen  world, 
and  of  One  who  ruled  it ;  though  the  sense  of  this 
connexion  was  a  balance  to  the  tendency  which 
they  felt  to  idolize  the  powers  of  Nature,  and  yet 
kept  them  from  a  mere  abstract,  formal  notion  of 
the  Divinity ;  though  by  it  they  learnt  to  realize, 
in  a  measure,  their  own  spiritual  existence ;  yet 
the  revelation  which  fulfils  the  heathen  expectation, 
which  turns  the  dream  of  a  Father  into  substance, 
is  that  which  is  expressed  in  the  words,  "  He  hath 


OUR  FATHER  WHICH  ART  IN  HEAVEjST.  7 

sent  forth  His  Son,  made  of  a  woman,  made  under 
the  law,  .  .  .  that  we  might  receive  the  adoption  of 
sons,"  and  in  those  which  are  inseparable  from  them, 
"Because  ye  are  sons,  he  hath  sent  the  Spirit  of 
his  Son  into  your  hearts,  crying,  Abba,  Father." 
Now  this  revelation  is  grounded  upon  an  act  done 
on  behalf  of  Humanity — an  act  in  which  all  men 
have  a  like  interest ;  for  if  Christ  did  not  take  the 
nature  of  every  rebel  and  outcast,  he  did  not  take 
the  nature  of  Paul  and  John.  Therefore  the  first 
sign  that  the  Church  was  established  upon  earth  in 
the  name  of  the  Father,  and  the  Son,  and  the 
Spirit,  was  one  which  showed  that  it  was  to  consist 
of  men  of  every  tongue  and  nation ;  the  baptized 
community  was  literally  to  represent  mankind.  If 
it  be  so,  the  name  Father  loses  its  significance  for 
us  individually,  when  we  will  not  use  it  as  the 
members  of  a  family.  No  doubt  it  is  a  true  name ; 
it  expresses  an  actual  relation ;  and  therefore,  if 
we  attain  by  ever  so  unfair  a  process,  through  ever 
so  narrow  a  chink,  to  the  perception  of  it,  we  may 
be  thankful.  But  the  possession  is  an  insecure 
one :  if  some  feelings  or  apprehensions  give  us  a 
title  to  it,  the  title  will  become  uncertain  with  every 
variety  of  our  feelings  and  apprehensions.  We 
shall  regard  the  Unchangeable  as  a  Father  to-day, 
and  not  to-morrow.  And  then  what  becomes  of 
the  Lord's  Prayer  as  a  fixed  manner  or  model  for 
all  prayer  ?  What  becomes  of  it  as  a  resource  in 
times  of  tribulation,  when  our  feelings  and  appre- 
hensions are  in  the  lowest,  most  miserable  state? 
What  is  its  worth  when  Ave  are  tempted  by  sug- 


8  SERMON  I. 

gestions  addressed  to  these  very  feelings  and  ap- 
prehensions— suggestions  which  overmaster  them, 
and  get  possession  of  them  ?  Does  any  one  answer, 
that  God  is  called  the  Father  of  our  spirits,  that 
He  is  said  to  beget  us  to  a  new  life,  that  as  natural 
men  we  are  not  His  children,  though  we  are  His 
creatures  ?  All  this  is  true  and  most  important ; 
and  it  is  precisely  what  we  assert,  when  we  say 
that  God  has  redeemed  mankind  in  Christ.  We 
mean  that  He  has  not  left  us  to  be  fleshly  crea- 
tures, to  be  animals,  a&  we  are  naturally  inclined 
to  be,  and  would  be  altogether,  if  He  were  not  up- 
holding us ;  we  mean  that  He  has  owned  us  as  spi- 
ritual creatures,  has  claimed  us  in  that  character 
to  be  his  servants  and  children,  has  given  us  His 
Spirit.  We  say  that  when  a  man  arises  and  goes 
to  his  Father,  he  renounces  his  vile,  selfish,  exclu- 
sive life,  and  takes  up  that  human  privilege  whicli 
God  has  given  him  in  Christ;  he  enters  upon  his 
state  as  a  man  when  he  confesses  God  as  his  Father. 
If,  instead  of  doing  this,  he  will  stand  upon  certain 
feelings  and  apprehensions  of  his,  which  separate 
him  from  his  kind,  he  is  not  a  penitent ;  he  is  still 
a  self-exalting,  self-glorying  man ;  he  has  not  been 
brought  to  feel  that  he  is  nothing ;  he  has  not  been 
forced  to  cast  himself  wholly  and  absolutely  upon 
the  love  and  mercy  of  God  in  Christ.  And,  surely, 
such  dependence,  such  self-renunciation,  such  will- 
ingness to  take  up  a  common  position  as  portions 
of  a  family,  is  very  difficult  for  creatures  proud  as 
we  are,  eager  to  have  something  of  our  own,  always 
hoping  to  make  out  for  ourselves  special  pleas  of 


OUR  FATHER  WHICH  ART  IN  HEAVEN.      9 

exemption  from  the  laws  of  the  uniyerse.  Only  by 
discoveries  often  forgotten,  often  repeated,  that 
we  cannot  establish  any  such  pleas,  that  they  must 
prove  trumpery  and  preposterous,  when  they  are 
urged  before  the  Judge  of  the  whole  earth,  only 
through  the  dreary  conviction  that  our  faith  and 
hope  and  love,  as  well  as  our  deeds,  are  shallow 
and  insincere,  are  we  drawn  to  real  trust  in  Him 
who  is  faithful  and  loving,  who  is  the  God  of  all 
hope ;  who  can  impart  to  us  the  power  of  believing, 
of  hoping,  of  loving,  of  doing  what  is  right ;  who  is 
willing  to  impart  it  because  He  is  our  Father,  and 
has  promised  all  good  things  to  them  that  ask 
Him. 

III.  It  might  seem,  till  we  know  a  little  of  our- 
selves, that  the  next  words,  "which  art,"  had  no- 
thing in  them  to  cause  us  offence  or  perplexity. 
But  they  too  are  hard  words.  The  greatest  temp- 
tation, perhaps,  of  this  age,  is  to  think  of  the  Most 
High  rather  as  one  about  whom  we  read  in  a  book, 
than  as  the  Living  God,  the  name  by  which  the 
book  always  speaks  of  Him.  It  is  a  fearful  ten- 
dency ;  but  if  you  search  your  hearts,  you  will  find 
it  there.  Nay,  there  is  not  need  of  much  search- 
ing ;  the  habit  is  so  natural.  In  all  ages,  a  dispo- 
sition has  been  apparent,  not  in  irreligious  minds, 
but  in  those  which  are  specially  serious  and  reve- 
rential, to  turn  their  devotion  towards  that  which 
has  been,  rather  than  to  that  which  is,  toward 
images  and  relics,  toward  whatever  carries  with  it 
the  sign  and  reminiscence  of  personality,  but  is  not 
personal.      The  modern  English  form  of  it  which 


10  SERMON  I. 

makes  words  rather  than  visible  objects  the  substi- 
tutes for  the  unseen  realities,  is  externally  so  un- 
like the  other  that  we  are  not  easily  persuaded  of 
their  essential  identity.  It  is  the  effort  of  prayer 
which  brings  the  evil  fully  before  us.  What  a  dim 
shadow,  thrown  it  would  seem  from  our  own  minds, 
has  often  been  before  us  when  we  were  kneeling  to 
the  Majesty  of  Heaven.  What  a  strange  self-con- 
gratulation, that  we  were  performing  an  act  of 
worship,  good  and  desirable,  to  some  Being ;  but  to 
what  Being  we  hardly  dared  to  ask  ourselves  !  Oh  ! 
surely  even  in  such  hours  there  have  been  flashes 
upon  the  conscience,  wonderful  assurances  that  the 
place  was  a  dreadful  one ;  that  God  was  there, 
though  we  had  not  known  it.  These  are  admoni- 
tions, that  the  Father  of  all  lives,  though  our  spi- 
rits be  ever  so  dead.  But  they  are  also  admoni- 
tions that  we  should  stir  ourselves  to  the  recollec- 
tion of  Him,  who  is  always  near  our  spirits ;  who 
can  both  restore  life  to  them,  and  keep  them  alive. 
And  if,  at  any  time.  He  has  taught  us  to  feel  that 
the  universe  would  be  a  horrible  blank  without 
Him ;  that  His  absence  would  be  infinitely  more 
to  us  than  to  all  creatures  beside ;  that  if  He  is  not, 
or  we  cannot  find  Him,  consciousness,  memory,  ex- 
pectation, existence,  must  be  curses  unbearable : 
but  that  when  the  burden  of  the  world  and  of  self 
is  most  crushing,  we  may  take  refuge  from  both  in 
Him, — if  at  any  time  such  convictions  have  dawned 
upon  us,  let  us  not  hope  to  keep  the  blessing  of 
them  by  our  own  skill  and  watchfulness.  Let  us 
say,   "  Our  Father  which  art,  when  we  least  re- 


OUR  FATHER  WHICH  ART  IN  HEAVEN.     11_ 

member  Thee,  fix  the  thought  of  Thy  Being  deeper 
than  all  other  thoughts  within  us ;  and  may  we, 
Thy  children,  dwell  in  it,  and  find  our  home  and 
rest  in  it,  now  and  for  ever." 

IV.  Once  more :  the  words  "Zri  Seaven,''  as  they 
are  closely  united  with  those  which  went  before  in 
meaning,  so  too,  like  them,  come  into  collision  with 
some  of  our  strongest  evil  tendencies.  The  impulse 
of  ordinary  polytheists  was  to  bring  God  down  to 
earth;  to  make  Him  like  themselves.  Against  this 
impulse  the  philosopher  protested,  representing  the 
Divine  Nature  as  wholly  inactive,  self-concentrated, 
removed  from  mundane  interests.  The  Gospel 
justifies  the  truth  which  was  implied  in  the  error  of 
the  first ;  Christ,  taking  flesh,  and  dwelling  among 
men,  declares  that  Heaven  has  stooped  to  earth. 
But  here  a  great  many  would  stop :  they  would  bring 
back  Paganism  through  Christianity.  The  Son  of 
God,  they  say,  has  become  incarnate;  now  fleshly 
things  are  again  divine;  earth  is  overshadowed  by 
Heaven ;  it  is  no  longer  sin  to  worship  that  which 
He  has  glorified.  In  the  manger  of  Bethlehem  they 
sink  the  Resurrection  and  Ascension ;  they  will  only 
look  at  one  part  of  the  great  Redemption,  not  at  the 
whole  of  it ;  at  the  condescension  to  our  vileness, 
not  at  the  deliverance  from  that  vileness,  which  the 
Son  accomplished  when  he  sat  down  at  the  right 
hand  of  the  Father.  But  He  does  not  sanction  this 
partial  and  grovelling  view.  "After  this  manner," 
he  taught  his  disciples,  even  while  he  was  upon 
earth, — "pray  ye,  Our  Father  which  art  in  Heaven. ' ' 
As  if  He  had  said,  Do  not  think  that  I  am  come  to 


12  SERMON  I. 

make  your  thoughts  of  God  less  awful  than  those 
of  Moses  were,  when  he  put  his  shoes  off  his  feet 
and  durst  not  behold ;  than  Solomon's  were,  when 
he  said,  "He  is  in  Heaven  and  thou  upon  earth, 
therefore  let  thy  words  be  few."  The  revelation  of 
the  divine  mystery  in  me  is  not  given  that  you  may 
entertain  it  better  in  your  low  carnal  hearts,  that 
you  may  mingle  it  more  with  the  things  which  you 
see  and  handle ;  that  each  of  you  may  have  a  war- 
rant for  the  form  of  idolatry  which  is  dear  to  him. 
This  revelation  is  given  that  the  mystery  may  be 
no  longer  one  of  darkness,  but  of  perfect  light: 
light  which  you  will  enter  into  more  and  more  as 
your  eyes  are  purged;  but  which,  if  it  colour  the 
mists  of  earth  for  a  moment,  will  at  last  scatter 
them  altogether. 

"  Our  Father:"  there  lies  the  expression  of  that 
fixed  eternal  relation  which  Christ's  birth  and  death 
have  established  between  the  littleness  of  the  crea- 
ture and  the  Majesty  of  the  Creator ;  the  one  great 
practical  answer  to  the  philosopher  who  would  make 
heaven  clear  by  making  it  cold,  would  assert  the 
dignity  of  the  Divine  Essence,  by  emptying  it  of 
its  love,  and  reducing  it  into  nothingness.  Our 
Father,  which  art  in  Heaven :  there  lies  the  answer 
to  all  the  miserable  substitutes  for  faith,  by  which 
the  invisible  has  been  lowered  to  the  visible ;  which 
have  insulted  the  understanding  and  cheated  the 
heart ;  which  have  made  united  worship  impossible, 
because  that  can  only  be  when  there  is  One  Being, 
eternal,  immortal,  invisible,  to  whom  all  may  look 
up  together,  into  whose  presence  a  way  is  opened 


OUR  FATHER  WHICH  ART  IN  HEAVEN.     13 

for  all,  whose  presence  is  a  refuge  from  the  con- 
fasions,  perplexities,  and  divisions  of  this  world; 
that  home  which  the  spirits  of  men  were  ever  seek- 
ing, and  could  not  find,  till  He,  who  had  borne  their 
sorrows  and  died  their  death,  entered  within  the 
veil,  having  obtained  eternal  redemption  for  them, 
till  He  bade  them  sit  with  Him  in  heavenly  places. 
What  I  have  said  may  have  seemed  to  prove  that 
this  simple  prayer  is  too  high  and  too  deep  for  crea- 
tures such  as  we  are.  Would  you  have  it  otherwise  ? 
Would  you  have  a  prayer  which  you  can  compre- 
hend and  fathom  ?  I  am  sure  the  conscience  and 
reason  would  reject  such  a  prayer  as  a  delusion,  an 
evident  self-contradiction.  I  have  said  nothing  to 
show  that  this  prayer  is  unsuitable  to  the  wants  and 
ignorance  of  any  beggar  in  our  streets.  I  have 
shown  only,  that  the  wisest  man,  who  will  not  use 
it  as  that  beggar  does,  who  will  try  it  by  his  own 
narrow  methods  and  measures,  will  find  that  he  has 
never  entered  into  the  sense  of  it,  that  he  is  con- 
demning himself  in  the  repetition  of  it.  And'  if, 
brethren,  we  all  know  that  we  have  been''guilty  of 
this  mockery  again  and  again,  how  clearly  do  our 
consciences  witness,  that  it  is  after  this  manner, 
and  no  other,  we  must  make  our  confession.  What 
despair  we  should  be  in,  if  our  unbelief  were  indeed 
truth,  and  not  a  lie!  If  the  word  "Our"  did  not 
express  the  truth,  that  we  participate  in  the  bless- 
ings, as  well  as  the  curses,  of  the  whole  race ;  if  the 
word  "Father"  were  a  word  merely,  and  not  the 
expression  of  an  eternal  truth ;  if  we  might  think  of 
Him  as  not  nigh,  but  afar  off;  in  a'book,'not  as  one 


14  SERiMON  I. 

in  whom  we  are  living  and  having  our  being ;  if  He 
were  subject  to  the  changes  of  earth,  not  for  ever 
fixed  in  Heaven,  whither  could  we  turn  under  the 
overpowering  sense  of  our  own  sinfulness  and  heart- 
lessness?  It  is  the  full  conviction  that  our  misery 
has  proceeded  from  ourselves,  from  our  maintaining 
a  resolute  war  with  facts  and  reality,  which  can  alone 
give  us  encouragement.  For  we  know  there  is  One 
who  is  willing  to  teach  us  how  to  pray  this  prayer 
in  spirit  and  in  truth ;  we  know  that  there  is  One 
who  is  praying  it.  He  who  died  for  us  and  for  all 
mankind,  He  who  is  ascended  into  Heaven,  He, 
who  is  true,  and  in  whom  is  no  lie,  did  when  He  was 
here  clothed  with  our  mortality,  does  now  in  his 
glorified  humanity  say,  in  the  full  meaning  of  the 
words,  for  us  and  for  his  whole  family  above  and 
below,  "Our  Father  which  art  in  Heaven." 


SERMON  II.. 


Septuagcfiima  Sunbag,  Sebvaax^  20,  IS^S. 


Hallowed  be  thy  Name. — Matthew  vi.  9. 

I  SAID  last  Sunday  that  in  this  Prayer  our  Lord 
taught  us  the  method,  as  Avell  as  the  principle  of 
all  prayer.  It  is,  indeed,  impossible  to  separate 
one  from  the  other.  The  principle  of  a  prayer 
which  asks  first  for  bread  or  forgiveness,  must  be 


HALLOWED  BE  THY  NAME.  15 

wholly  different  from  the  principle  of  one  which 
begins  with  "Hallowed  be  thy  Name."  The  con- 
ceptions of  Prayer  which  you  would  derive  from 
them  are  unlike,  nay,  they  are  opposed. 

I  think  there  can  be  little  doubt  which  form  men 
would  most  readily  adopt.  "Let  us  have  bread 
enough,  bread  to  satisfy  all  bodily  appetites :  bread, 
if  you  will,  that  shall  meet  our  intellectual,  our 
spiritual  desires — what  other  petition  can  possibly 
take  precedence  of  this  ?  If  an  earthly  ruler  could 
send  us  this  blessing,  should  we  not  implore  him  for 
it  before  all  things  ?  If  we  are  hearty  in  believing 
that  the  Heavenly  Ruler  is  willing  to  send  it,  shall 
we  not  take  the  same  course  when  we  call  upon 
Him  ?  Shall  we  strain  ourselves  to  introduce  need- 
less, artificial  preliminaries,  when  this  is  what  He 
knows  we  are  craving  for?  "  So  men  are  likely 
to  reason  till  they  painfully  discover  that  there  is 
something  they  need  more  than  bread,  till  a  certain 
inward  gnawing  in  lonely  hours,  on  a  sick  bed,  sug- 
gests that  sin  has  need  .to  be  pardoned,  as  well  as 
hunger  to  be  appeased.  Is  it  not  still  more  mon- 
strous to  interpose  any  check  to  the  utterance  of 
this  cry?  What  can  be  so  desirable  as  that  it 
should  be  poured  forth  with  all  the  agony  and  in- 
tensity of  a  spirit  which  has  learnt  that  such  a  boon 
would  be  cheaply  purchased  by  the  sacrifice  of  all 
things  else? 

Language  of  this  kind  would  seem  to  be  reli- 
gious as  well  as  natural,  proceeding  from  sympa- 
thy with  human  needs,  and  a  belief  that  there  is  a 
divine  provision  for  them.    And  yet  our  Lord  says, 


16  SERMON  II.       ■ 

"After  this  manner  pray  ye :  Our  Father  which  art 
in  Heaven,  Hallowed  be  thy  Name."  He  recog- 
nises the  desires  of  which  I  have  spoken  as  rea- 
sonable'and  true,  but  he  postpones  them  ;  and  this, 
too,  when  he  is  warning  us  against  babbling  in 
prayer,  against  all  vain,  idle,  formulas;  when  he 
is  directing  us  especially  to  ask  for  the  things  we 
have  need  of. 

Brethren,  in  this  difference  lies,  I  believe,  the 
great  contrast  between  those  systems  of  theological 
doctrine  and  practice,  which  have  been  shaped  out 
by  the  subtlety  of  divines  in  accordance  with  the 
cravings  of  disciples,  and  that  teaching  which  be- 
gins from  God,  which  never  lowers  itself  to  the 
base  and  selfish  thoughts  of  men,  and  which,  there- 
fore, is  able  to  satisfy  all  that  is  real  in  man  as  no- 
thing else  can.  Ask  the  systematizer  what  that 
Revelation  is  which  the  Bible  records :  he  will  tell 
you,  that  it  is  the  announcement  of  the  duty  which 
man  owes  to  his  Maker  for  the  good  things  he  en- 
joys upon  earth ;  and  of  a  scheme  of  redemption 
by  which  he  may  obtain  pardon  for  his  sins,  and 
higher  blessings  hereafter.  Ask  the  Apostles,  or 
our  Lord  Himself,  what  that  revelation  is,  and  they 
say  it  is  the  revelation  of  a  Father  whom  men 
were  feeling  after  and  could  not  find,  and  who  at 
length  declared  Himself  to  them  in  His  well-beloved 
Son.  If  the  first  statement  be  accepted  as  the 
truest  and  simplest,  the  prayers,  "Give  us  bread," 
"Forgive  us  our  sins,"  are  all  that  we  have  any 
concern  with ;  we  should  rush  into  them  at  once ; 
by  them  we  grasp  all  the  good  which  creation  and 


HALtOAVED  BE  THY  NAME.  17 

redemption  have  in  store  for  us.  If  we  are  led 
by  any  process  to  feel  that  the  news  concerning  a 
father  is  really  the  good  news,  apart  from  which  the 
promise  of  food  or  pardon  would  signify  nothing,  we 
shall  feel  that  "  Hallowed  be  thy  Name  "  is  the  first 
and  most  necessary  and  most  blessed  prayer  for 
the  whole  human  race  and  for  every  one  of  its 
members. 

For  every  gross  and  cruel  superstition  has  this 
origin  and  definition :  it  springs  from  ignorance  of 
the  name  of  God;  it  consists  in  and  by  that  igno- 
rance. It  mixes  Him  with  His  creatures;  first 
with  what  is  highest  in  them,  next  with  what  is 
mean,  then  with  what  is  basest ;  finally  it  identifies 
him  with  the  Evil  Spirit.  What  is  darkest  and 
most  hateful ;  what  a  man  flies  from  most,  and  would 
desire  should  not  exist ;  this  becomes  the  object  of 
His  worship.  He  has  within  him  a  witness  that 
there  is  a  Being  whom  he  ought  to  love  with  his 
heart  and  soul  and  strength.  That  which  he  con- 
ceives of  as  this  Being,  that  which  his  fancy  and 
his  conscience  represent  to  him  is  one  whom  he  in- 
wardly hates,  and  from  whom  he  would  be  deli- 
vered. 

But  these  horrors  belong,  it  will  be  said,  to  the 
ages  of  priestcraft;  civilization  puts  an  end  to 
them.  Let  us  understand  ourselves  clearly  on  this 
point,  that  we  may  not  deny  what  is  right  in  the 
assertion,  nor  be  deluded  by  mere  phrases.  The 
classes  which  have  been  brought  within  the  reach 
and  sway  of  civilization  have,  no  doubt,  learnt  that 
the  inventions  of  superstition  are  false  and  mis- 


18  SERMON  II. 

chievous;  they  have  seen  that  a  dark  notion  of 
the  divinity  is  at  the  root  of  them;  they  have  made 
strenuous  efforts  to  rid  themselves  of  what  they 
believe  to  be  a  phantom.  In  place  of  it  they  have 
substituted  a  being  answering  to  their  own  habits 
ormind,  good-natured,  indifferent,  tolerant  of  evil. 
To  such  a  being  they  have  paid  a  homage  which 
they  have  almost  felt  to  be  fictitious,  a  homage 
justifying  itself  chiefly  on  the  plea  that  the  de- 
pendence of  inferiors — the  general  order  of  society 
— could  hardly  be  maintained  without  it.  The  hum- 
bler men,  partly  perceiving  why  this  decent  devo- 
tion was  thought  desirable,  partly  observing  that  it 
only  lasted  during  summer-days,  and  was  often 
changed  for  another  and  more  vulgar  sort  in  ca- 
lamity; but,  above  all,  conscious  that  it  was  of  a 
nature  altogether  unsuited  to  them,  either  cherish 
amid  the  glare  and  glitter  of  civilized  life  the  dark 
thoughts  of  another  age,  or  change  them  for  a 
more  resolute  and  courageous  atheism,  or,  lastly, 
learn  that  God  is  a  refuge  in  time  of  trouble,  a  de- 
liverer from  the  horrors  of  conscience,  not  an  enemy 
who  must  be  persuaded  to  forego  his  hatred  of  them, 
or  a  mere  phantom  of  benevolence,  who  leaves  His 
creatures  undisturbed  in  their  wickedness  and  mi- 
sery. Upon  the  thoughts  of  God  it  will  depend,  in 
one  time  or  another,  whether  we  rise  higher  or  sink 
lower  as  societies  and  as  individuals. 

The  civility  or  intelligence  of  a  people  may  seem 
to  have  grown  up,  and  to  be  growing,  under  the 
influence  of  a  multitude  of  adventitious  circum- 
stances.    But  if  you  search  well,  you  will  find  that 


HALLOWED  BE  THY  NAME.  19 

whatever  there  is  in  it  not  false,  whatever  has  not 
the  sentence  of  speedy  death  written  upon  it,  has 
had  a  deeper  and  more  mysterious  origin.  It  has 
been  the  fruit  of  struggles,  carried  on  in  solitary 
chambers  by  men  whom  the  world  has  not  known, 
or  has  despised;  struggles  which  were  to  decide 
what  power  they  were  meant  to  obey,  and  to  what 
power  they  would  yield  themselves;  struggles  to 
know  the  name  of  Him  who  was  wrestling  with 
them ;  to  know  whether  He  was  one  who  cared  for 
them,  or  who  hated  them  or  was  indifferent  about 
them;  whether  they  had  a  real  or  an  imaginary 
Master ;  whether  God  is  a  presence  floating  in  the 
air,  or  a  Person  who  can  be  loved,  feared,  trusted  ; 
whether  they  and  the  universe  were  separated  by 
a  thin  plank  of  opinion  and  sentiment  from  a  bot- 
tomless pit  of  Atheism,  into  which  both  must  sink 
at  last ;  or  whether  they  were  resting  upon  a  rock 
which  could  not  pass  away,  though  not  earth  only 
should  be  shaken,  but  also  heaven.  But  for  these 
questions,  which  those  who  were  exercised  by  them 
knew  were  not  propounded  by  any  human  doctor, 
do  not  fancy  that  there  could  have  been  any  thought 
or  energy  or  hope  in  the  world.  Luxury  and  com- 
fort do  not  confer  there;  there  is  no  exorcism  in 
them  to  cast  out  the  demons  of  indolence  and  de- 
spair. No !  men  have  learnt  to  say  this  prayer, 
"  Hallowed  be  Thy  Name  ;  "  and  to  say  it  before  all 
others.  They  have  found  that  the  prayer  for  bread 
might  mean  any  thing,  from  an  Eleusinian  mystery 
to  the  cry  of  a  Genoveva  in  the  desert  for  milk  to 
nourish  her  babe;  that  a  prayer  for  forgiveness 


20  SEKMON  II. 

might  mean  any  thing,  from  the  words,  "  Thou  de- 
sirest  truth  in  the  inward  parts ;  Thou  canst  wash 
me  with  hyssop,  and  I  shall  be  clean ;  Thou  canst 
wash  me,  and  I  shall  be  whiter  than  snow ; "  to  the 
sacrifice  of  a  virgin,  that  the  wrath  of  the  gods 
might  be  averted,  and  a  favourable  breeze  granted 
to  a  fleet.  One  petition  as  much  as  the  other, 
these  suiFerers  perceived,  must  derive  its  worth 
from  that  which  went  before.  What  is  the  Name 
of  Him  to  whom  we  pray?  all  the  meaning  of 
prayer,  of  human  existence,  turns  upon  the  answer 
which  we  make  to  this  demand. 

II.  But  it  is  not  quite  certain  what  answer  we 
shall  make  to  it  ?  How  can  we  hallow  the  Name 
of  God,  if  by  hallowing  is  meant,  keeping  it  sepa- 
rate from  all  other  names ;  preserving  it  as  the 
special  treasure  of  our  spirits ;  not  suffering  the 
idea  of  absolute  holiness,  purity,  goodness,  to  be 
soiled  by  any  defilements  from  without  or  from 
within?  Suppose  I  could  shut  myself  out  from  the 
world,  drawing  round  me  some  charmed  circle  which 
should  exclude  not  only  its  direct  assaults  but  its 
secret  plague  influences,  should  I  not  still  have  to 
ask  myself  whether  I  was  a  safe  steward  of  the  di- 
vine treasure ;  whether  my  pride  in  the  trust  might 
not  destroy  it ;  whether  the  Name  might  not  pass 
into  a  shadow,  while  I  was  thinking  of  it  as  most 
substantial ;  whether  it  might  not  be  acquiring  from 
the  imaginations  of  my  heart  all  the  same  mixtures 
which  it  had  contracted  among  the  tribes  of  men  ? 

Experience  authorizes  these  inquiries ;  it  scarcely 
authorizes  us  in  giving  more  than  one  answer  to 


HALLOWED  BE  THY  NAME.  21 

them.  Solitude  is  no  security  for  the  hallowing  of 
God's  Name;  recluses  have  dealt  as  irreverently 
with  it  as  men  in  the  world's  bustle.  For  us,  how- 
ever, this  point  is  of  no  great  practical  importance, 
except  to  preserve  us  from  desiring  a  state  which 
is  evidently  not  intended  for  us.  We  know  that 
our  thoughts  of  God,  as  well  as  our  other  thoughts, 
are,  and  will  be  continually,  affected  by  speech,  by 
books,  by  the  movement  and  attrition  of  society. 
We  know  how  various  these  thoughts  have  been : 
earnest  yesterday,  indifferent  to-day;  the  Name 
now  so  little  heeded,  that  we  could  trifle  with  it  in 
the  most  ordinary  conversation,  in  the  most  vulgar 
adjurations;  now  so  terrible,  that  we  dared  not 
entertain  the  thought  of  it ;  now  looking  so  beauti- 
ful at  a  distance,  that  we  were  content  it  should 
always  remain  at  a  distance ;  now  approaching  into 
awful  nearness;  now  making  us  fear  that  it  would 
ever  be  a  shadow  to  us,  and  nothing  more ;  now  in- 
viting us  to  take  refuge  in  it  from  a  hopeless  Athe- 
ism. To  hallow  God's  Name,  habitually  to  hallow 
it,  amidst  such  countless  variations  of  the  external 
atmosphere,  such  colds  and  heats  in  ourselves — 
how  is  it  possible  ?  Must  not  we  give  up  the  at- 
tempt ? 

III.  Certainly  it  is  better  that  we  should ;  then 
we  shall  begin  to  pray,  "Hallowed  be  thy  Name." 
"  We  cannot  hallow  it ;  we  cannot  keep  it  from  con- 
tact with  our  folly,  baseness,  corruption ;  the  world 
cannot  keep  it:  the  Church  cannot.  But  Thou 
canst.  Thou  canst  make  the  darkness  of  the  world 
a  foil  to  thy  clear  untroubled  light,  a  means  to  its 


22  SERMON  II. 

manifestation.  Thou  canst  make  the  intricacies, 
falsehoods,  contradictions  of  our  hearts  into  reasons 
for  our  seeking  and  apprehending  Thj  simplicity 
and  truth.  That  which  would  be  in  us,  left  to  our- 
selves, terror  of  Thy  power.  Thou  canst  make  awe 
of  Thy  holiness ;  what  would  be  presumption  of  Thy 
indifference.  Thou  canst  make  into  hope  of  Thy 
mercy ;  what  would  be  defiance  of  Thy  judgment, 
Thou  canst  make  trust  in  Thy  righteousness.  Thus 
will  Thy  image  be  restored  in  man,  because  he  will 
be  able  to  behold  Thee  the  Archetype." 

Such  a  prayer  is  not  one  which  men  could  have 
dreamed  of  themselves,  but  it  is  one  which  God 
himself  has  taught  them.  He  led  His  saints  in  the 
old  times  to  pray  that  He  would  declare  His  great 
Name;  to  thank  Him  for  all  His  past  revelations 
of  it ;  to  flee  to  it  as  a  strong  tower,  in  which  they 
were  safe  from  their  enemies.  Every  new  act  of 
His  judgment  and  His  mercy  was  an  answer  to  the 
cry ;  in  every  such  act  the  prophet  saw  the  witness 
and  pledge  of  a  fuller  manifestation.  The  petition 
then  was  no  new  one.  The  disciples  had  often 
heard  it  before  that  day  when  our  Lord  was  alone, 
praying,  and  when  they  said,  "Teach  us  as  John 
taught  his  disciples."  But  they  knew  that  He  had 
stamped  it  with  a  new  impression ;  for  though  they 
understood  but  imperfectly  why  He  had  come,  and 
who  He  was,  their  hearts  testified  that  He  had  cer- 
tainly come  to  do  that  which  He  bade  them  ask 
for.  If  He  brought  gifts  to  men,  if  He  proclaimed 
forgiveness  to  men,  this  was  His  first  gift,  this  was 
the  ground  of  His  forgiveness,  he  hallowed  the 


HALLOWED  BE  THY  NAME.  23 

Name  of  God.  He  showed  forth  the  Father  who 
dwelt  in  Him  full  of  grace  and  truth.  Men  could 
see  Him  after  whose  likeness  they  had  been  cre- 
ated, in  a  pure  untroubled  mirror.  They  were  not 
obliged  to  measure  the  Eternal  Mind  by  the  partial 
distorted  forms  of  truth  and  goodness  which  they 
found  each  in  himself.  Here  was  goodness  and 
truth  in  its  primitive  form,  in  its  entire  fulness. 
They  needed  not  to  reduce  goodness  and  truth  into 
abstractions;  here  they  were  exhibited  in  actual 
human  life ;  the  perfect  man  reflecting  the  perfect 
God.  They  need  not  dream  of  qualities  which  the 
shock  of  the  Fall  had  separated  in  their  minds — 
mercy  and  justice,  freedom  and  obedience  —  as 
having  a  corresponding  conflict  in  the  Eternal 
Mind;  here  they  were  seen  working  harmoniously 
in  every  word  and  deed. 

Thus  God's  Name  was  hallowed  for  them,  thus 
it  has  been  hallowed  for  us.  This  revelation  is  for 
all  ages :  if  one  has  more  need  of  it  than  another, 
ours  is  the  one. 

We  are  in  danger  alike  from  the  invasion  of  all 
old  superstitions,  and  of  a  fanatical  Atheism ;  for 
they  have  a  common  ground.  All  superstition,  all 
idolatry,  had  its  root  in  the  belief  that  God  is  made 
in  our  image,  and  not  we  in  His ;  the  most  preva- 
lent assumption  of  the  modern  as  of  the  ancient 
sophist  is,  that  man  is  the  measure  of  all  things ; 
that  there  is  nothing  great  or  holy  which  is  not  his 
creation.  Do  not  wonder,  then,  at  any  combina- 
tions you  may  see  in  our  day  between  parties  seem- 
ingly the  most  hostile — at  any  apparently  sudden 


24  SERMON  II. 

transitions  from  one  camp  to  the  otlier.  There  is 
no  real  inconsistency,  no  abandonment  of  principle. 
Do  not  let  us  be  hasty  in  urging  that  charge  or 
any  charge.  But  let  us  be  very  careful  in  under- 
standing the  temptation  of  the  age,  because  it  is 
certainly  our  own.  Let  us  not  think  we  escape  it 
by  doing  just  the  opposite  of  those  who  seem  to  us 
to  have  fallen  into  it;  by  cultivating  all  opinions 
and  notions  which  they  reject ;  by  fearing  a  truth 
when  they  speak  it.  We  may  find  that  their  prac- 
tical conclusions  meet  us  at  the  point  which  we 
thought  the  furthest  from  them,  and  that  we  have 
turned  away  from  the  very  principle  with  which  we 
might  have  strengthened  ourselves,  if  not  have 
done  some  good  to  them.  Still  less  let  us  refuse  to 
have  our  own  loose  and  incoherent  notions  brought 
to  trial,  lest  in  losing  them  we  should  lose  the  eter- 
nal truths  of  God's  Word.  Depend  upon  it,  they 
are  in  the  greatest  peril  from  every  insincere  habit 
of  mind  we  tolerate  in  ourselves ;  they  will  come  out 
with  a  brightness  we  have  never  dreamed  of  when 
we  are  made  simple  and  honest.  Therefore  let  us 
pray  this  prayer,  "Hallowed  be  Thy  Name,"  be- 
lieving that  it  has  been  answered,  and  being  confi- 
dent that  it  will  be  answered.  It  was  answered  in 
the  old  time  by  God's  covenant;  by  the  calling  of 
every  holy  man;  by  the  Divine  law;  by  all  the  or- 
dinances of  family  and  national  life ;  by  every  pro- 
phet and  teacher  whom  God  sent ;  by  every  witness 
which  He  bore  to  one  people  or  another,  in  their 
conscience,  in  the  discipline  of  their  lives,  through 
nature,  through  death,  of  His  own  character.     It 


THY  KINGDOM  COME.  25 

was  answered  by  the  whole  life  and  death  of  the 
only-begotten  Son,  the  first-born  of  many  brethren, 
the  Prince  of  all  the  kings  of  the  earth.  It  was 
answered  by  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  abide 
with  the  Church  for  ever,  for  this  end,  that  He 
might  teach  men  of  the  Father  and  the  Son.  It 
is  answered  by  our  baptism  into  the  holy  and  blessed 
Name,  the  Father,  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost. 
It  is  answered  by  confirmation  and  prayers,  and 
holy  communions,  by  individual  trials,  by  visitations 
to  nations,  by  the  gift  of  new  life  to  churches,  by 
the  conversion  of  sinners,  by  dying  beds.  It  will 
be  answered  when  we  all  yield  ourselves  up  in  deed 
and  truth  to  the  Spirit  of  God,  that  we  like  our  Lord 
may  glorify  His  Name  upon  the  earth,  and  may 
accomplish  the  work  which  He  has  given  us  to  do. 


SERMON   III. 


Scjeagesima  Sunban,  ixbrnarn  27,  ISIS. 

Thy  Kingdom  come. — Matt.  vi.  10. 

We  have  reached  this  petition  of  the  Lord's 
Prayer  at  a  time  which  would  seem  to  give  it  special 
emphasis  and  significancy.  I  suppose  few  have  re- 
peated it  this  week  without  a  kind  of  impression, 
hoAvever  vague,  that  it  bore  upon  events  which  were 
occupying  themselves  and  the  world.     The  words 


26  SERMON  III. 

"  Thy  Kingdom,"  must  have  suggested  to  most  a 
contrast  between  a  Kingdom  ■vYliicli  cannot  be  moved 
and  kingdoms  which  appeared  firm  one » day,  and 
have  been  shaken  to  the  ground  the  next. 

But  this  general  reflection  will  have  taken  differ- 
ent forms  according  to  the  previous  habits,  con- 
victions, associations,  of  those  who  entertained  it. 
The  first  and  most  natural  form  is  surely  an  ex- 
pectation that  there  will  be  some  time  or  other  a 
better  order  in  all  our  relations  to  each  other,  and 
in  all  the  circumstances  which  aff"ect  us  here  on 
this  planet.  Upon  what  ground  soever  this  expec- 
tation rests,  it  lasts  with  wonderful  vitality  through 
fair  and  foul  weather,  through  killing  heats  and 
frosts.  No  one  who  has  once  cherished  it  entirely 
loses  it ;  or,  if  he  loses  it,  he  loses  himself  with  it. 
Disappointments,  desertions,  mockeries,  may  change 
its  shape,  or  drive  it  further  within,  but  they  do  not 
destroy  it.  If  it  fades  away  for  awhile,  it  bursts 
out  more  vigorously  when  you  least  look  for  it. 
Many  who  have  expected  from  one  civil  movement 
after  another  that  which  they  have  not  found,  be- 
lieve that  a  better  ecclesiastical  organization,  or  a 
freer  working  of  that  which  exists,  would  remedy 
all  confusions ;  others  find  refuge  in  the  promise  of 
a  universal  education;  not  a  few,  who  have  con- 
vinced themselves  that  no  human  rulers  of  one  kind 
or  another,  in  Church  or  State,  no  systems  of  go- 
vernment or  instruction,  will  avail  for  the  removal 
of  evil  and  the  establishment  of  good,  cling  more 
strongly  to  the  belief  that  One  who  is  above  all 
human  rulers  and  systems  will  soon  claim  the  earth 


THY  KINtJDOM  COME.  27 

as  His  riglitful  possession ;  that  all  convulsions  in 
the  existing  order  of  things  are  the  trumpets  by 
x^hich  he  announces  that  the  city  He  has  accursed 
is  about  to  fall  down.  All  these  convictions,  dif- 
ferent as  they  are,  belong  to  the  same  habit  of  mind. 
Those  who  entertain  them  mean  when  they  pray, 
"  Thy  Kingdom  come,"  "Let  the  earth  be  governed 
wisely  and  truly,  not  as  it  has  been,  by  the  help  of 
folly,  insincerity,  crime." 

Such  a  prayer  will  call  up  some  echo  in  the  hearts 
of  all.  But  in  many  good  men  only  a  feeble  echo ;  for 
the  wish  which  it  expresses  is,  in  them,  swallowed 
up  by  a  stronger  one.  They  never  knew  where  to 
find  or  how  to  make  for  themselves  a  position  upon 
earth;  it  never  cheered  them  or  soothed  them. 
Now  and  then  they  have  had  sudden  revelations  of 
beauty  in  hill  or  valley,  at  sunrise  or  sunset,  but 
these  spoke,  as  they  appeared  and  vanished,  of  some 
region  to  which  the  eye  could  not  reach.  Now 
and  then  they  have  met  faces  which  smiled  on  them, 
but  they  seemed  to  have  descended  from  a  distant 
home  to  which  they  soon  returned.  Even  the  nar- 
row circle  in  which  these  pilgrims  dwell  confuses 
them  by  the  various  interests  and  opposing  senti- 
ments of  those  who  belong  to  it ;  the  larger  circles 
of  society,  with  their  manifold  complications,  alto- 
gether bewilder  them.  It  seems  to  them  a  weary 
maze,  without  a  plan ;  men  are  running  a  race  with 
each  other,  of  which  a  few  withered  leaves  are  the 
prize ;  they  are  beginning  a  tale  which  must  be 
broken  off  in  the  middle  ;  death  makes  all  plots  im- 
perfect ;  only  that  state  to  which  he  introduces  us 
can  unravel  tliem.     There  in  that  state  must  lie  all 


28  SERMON  III. 

that  we  dream  of  and  hope  for.  Their  vision  of  the 
land  that  is  very  far  off  may  be  not  as  clear  as  they 
wish,  but  it  is  more  clear  than  their  vision  of  any 
thing  which  lies  about  them ;  without  it  all  would 
be  shadow  and  darkness.  When  such  pei'sons  think 
of  tumults  and  revolutions,  they  feel  more  keenly 
what  it  is  they  would  escape  from.  When  they 
pray,  "Thy  Kingdom  come,"  they  ask  that  the 
Great  Shepherd  will  lead  them  and  their  brethren 
out  of  a  land  of  pits,  a  thirsty  wilderness,  a  valley 
of  the  shadow  of  death,  to  a  peaceable  habitation, 
and  a  sure  dwelling-place. 

But  there  are  also  men  who  feel  strongly  that 
the  kingdoms  of  this  world  are  of  a  weak  and  pe- 
rishable material,  and  yet  who  cannot  be  satisfied 
with  the  mere  anticipation  of  a  better  inheritance 
after  death.  They  require  what  is  different  in  kind 
from  any  thing  which  their  eyes  see,  not  merely 
that  in  an  improved  and  perfected  form.  They 
desire  a  blessing  which  by  its  very  nature  cannot 
be  more  for  one  time  than  another,  cannot  be  less 
needful  for  men  here  than  hereafter.  They  have 
spirits  which  are  haunted  with  the  sense  of  a  beauty 
and  righteousness  and  truth  which  may  be  imaged 
in  the  world  around  them,  but  of  which  the  source 
must  lie  nearer  to  themselves.  Some  of  them  would 
say  that  it  is  in  themselves ;  if  men  were  but  great 
and  noble,  and  disengaged  from  the  impressions  of 
sense  and  the  notions  of  society,  they  would  per- 
ceive it.  Others  afiirm,  that  when  they  exalt  them- 
selves this  secret  is  hidden  from  them :  that  they 
enter  into  it  only  when  they  are  humbled. 

The  first  would  say,  not  indeed  in  a  prayer,  but 


TIIY  KINGDOM  COME.  29 

in  their  professions,  tlieir  daily  acts,  their  processes 
of  self-discipline,  "My  Kingdom  come;"  let  my 
spirit  be  lightened  of  the  outward  impediments 
which  prevent  it  from  being  right,  wise,  free ;  let  it 
be  lifted  to  its  proper  throne,  from  which  it  may 
look  upon  all  beneath  and  around  it,  and  if  there  be 
aught  above  it,  as  its  own  possession.  The  other 
says,  "Thy  Kingdom  come;"  let  the  eyes  of  my 
understanding  be  cleared  of  their  native  mists,  that 
they  may  see  Thy  wisdom  ;  let  me  be  purged  of  my 
inward  pride  and  self-seeking,  that  I  may  know 
Thy  truth ;  let  me  be  set  free  from  my  exceeding 
sinfulness,  that  I  may  confess  Thy  righteousness, 
and  be  clothed  with  it.  And  that  this  may  come 
to  pass,  do  Thou  take  the  government  of  all  that 
is  within  me,  of  conscience,  affection,  reason,  will, 
that  they  may  do  Thy  work  and  not  their  own,  and 
be  directed  to  the  great  ends  for  which  Thou  hast 
designed  them,  not  to  those  meaner  ends  which 
they  would  invent  for  themselves. 

We  have  found  then,  at  least,  three  distinct  in- 
terpretations of  this  prayer,  leading  to  practical 
conclusions,  apparently  very  remote  from  each 
other.  It  is  surely  important  to  know  whether 
they  are  incompatible;  if  they  are,  which  is  the 
right  one;  if  they  are  not,  how  they  are  reconciled. 
I  think  you  will  agree  with  me  that  there  is  but 
one  authority  which  can  decide  these  questions. 
lie  who  taught  his  disciples  the  prayer,  can  alone 
tell  them  what  the  nature  of  that  kingdom  is,  which 
lie  bids  them  desire. 


30  SERMON    III. 

I.  You  will  remember,  tliat  when  our  Lord  be- 
gan to  preach,  saying,  Repent,  for  the  kingdom  of 
Heaven  is  at  hand,  the  expectation  of  a  coming 
kingdom  was  strong  in  the  minds  of  at  least  a  large 
body  of  the  Jewish  people.  Those  who  felt  the 
Herodian  family  to  be  cruel  oppressors  and  fo- 
reigners likewise,  those  who  were  tormented  by  the 
recollection  of  a  still  more  shameful  servitude, 
which  the  sight  of  every  Roman  soldier,  of  every 
tax-gatherer,  brought  before  them,  believed  that 
the  Divine  Kingdom,  the  Kingdom  of  God,  was  to 
be  the  deliverance  from  these.  Have  you  not 
sometimes  wondered  that  we  are  not  told  of  any 
direct  words  in  which  our  Lord  combated  this  ex- 
pression ?  He  might  have  said  at  once  to  the  peo- 
ple of  Galilee,  or  Judaea,  The  kingdom  I  speak  of 
lias  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  those  to  which  you 
compare  it ;  you  only  confuse  yourselves  by  think- 
ing of  them  together.  But  he  did  not  say  so.  He 
used  the  phrases,  "Thy  Kingdom,"  "The  Kingdom 
of  God,"  "The  Kingdom  of  Heaven,"  on  every 
possible  occasion,  though  He  knew  that  this  associ- 
ation was  present  to  the  minds  of  those  who  heard 
liim.  It  is  true,  that  those  who  had  come  before 
Him  appealing  to  the  desire  for  liberty  in  their 
countrymen,  and  holding  out  the  hope  of  a  divine 
interference  to  satisfy  it,  had  led  their  followers 
into  the  wilderness  to  insurrection  and  to  murder. 
There  was  that  difference,  amidst  a  multitude  of 
others  as  wonderful,  between  His  method  and  theirs. 
What  I  am  observing  is,  that  there  was  not  this 
difTeronce.    The  Jews  generally,  the  Galileans  more 


THY  KINGDOM  COME.  31 

than  the  rest  of  their  countrymen,  looked  upon 
themselves  as  in  an  oppressed,  anomalous  condi- 
tion, such  as  the  chosen  people  of  God  ought  not 
to  be  in.  He  did  not  tell  them  that  they  were 
mistaken.  They  believed  that  God  meant  to  deli- 
ver them  out  of  this  condition.  His  words  and  his 
acts  confirmed  them  in  the  hope.  They  thought 
that  they  must  be  brought  into  a  different  social 
position  before  they  could  attain  freedom.  He  ad- 
mitted the  necessity.  Many  public  acts,  besides 
His  last  entry  into  Jerusalem  as  the  Son  of  David, 
proved  that  be  claimed  to  be  what  Nathanael  de- 
clared him  to  be,  "The  King  of  Israel."  His  pa- 
rables, so  far  from  setting  aside  common  language, 
from  disconnecting  His  Kingdom  with  the  common 
relations  and  feelings  of  men,  affirmed  that  all 
facts  in  nature  and  social  life  were  testifying  of  it ; 
His  miracles,  so  far  from  diminishing  the  impres- 
sion that  He  came  to  set  men  free  from  a  galling 
yoke,  were  one  and  all  acts  of  deliverance ;  of  de- 
liverance, not  from  some  bondage  of  which  the  suf- 
ferers were  not  conscious,  but  from  the  most  visible, 
obvious,  bodily  torments.  These  are  sufficient 
proofs,  I  think,  that  our  Lord  does  not  intend  us, 
when  we  pray  his  prayer,  to  shut  our  eyes  against 
the  actual  confusions  and  oppressions  under  which 
men  are  suifering,  or  to  think  that  His  Kingdom 
is  of  too  transcendent  a  character  to  take  account 
of  them.  Assuredly  when  we  do,  we  depart  from 
His  teaching  and  example ;  we  bring  ourselveslnto 
a  very  artificial,  visionary  state  of  feeling ;  we  set 
aside  the  great  truth,  that  as  nothing  human  should 


32  SERMON  III. 

be  foreign  from  those  who  are  partakers  of  huma- 
nity, nothing  human  can  be  foreign  from  Ilim  who 
is  the  Head  of  it.  The  lofty  expressions  of  con- 
tempt for  the  littleness  of  mere  earthly  transactions 
and  the  vicissitudes  of  human  governments,  which 
some  divines  affect,  are  not  learnt  in  His  school, 
or  in  the  schools  of  His  prophets.  They  rather 
teach  us  to  be  ashamed  of  the  cold  indifference  with 
which  we  trace  His  footsteps  and  listen  to  his  voice 
in  the  present  and  past  history  of  mankind.  Sure- 
ly, then,  we  are  not  to  condemn  those  who  hope 
for  the  cure  of  the  ills  which  they  know  to  exist, 
through  a  larger  and  wider  sympathy  in  civil  go- 
vernors, through  a  deeper  knowledge  of  the  ends 
for  which  the  Church  exists,  and  a  more  faithful 
use  of  the  powers  with  which  she  is  endowed,  or, 
lastly,  from  the  manifestation  of  Him  to  whom 
State-rulers  and  Church-rulers  alike  owe  homage. 
All  these  expectations  are  sustained,  not  crushed, 
by  the  Word  and  Spirit  of  God.  Without  divine 
succour  and  encouragement  they  must  have  pe- 
rished long  ago,  to  our  great  misery,  under  the 
pressure  of  selfish  feelings  and  interests,  and  of  the 
despondency  which  experience,  not  penetrated  with 
a  higher  principle,  brings  after  it.  And  wherein 
then  do  those  who  have  cherished  these  expecta- 
tions, to  which  we  owe  so  much  of  all  that  has  been 
best  in  the  world,  seem  to  have  wandered  from  His 
guidance  who  justifies  their  higher  aspirations  ?  In 
this  respect,  I  think,  mainly,  our  Lord  speaks  of 
His  Kingdom,  or  His  Father's  Kingdom,  not  as  if 
it  were  to  set  aside  that  constitution  of  the  universe, 


THY  KINGDOM  COME.  33 

of  which  men  had  seen  the  tokens  in  family  and 
national  institutions,  of  which  they  had  dreamed 
when  they  thought  of  a  higher  and  more  general 
fellowship ;  but  as  if  it  were  that  very  constitution 
in  the  fulness  of  its  meaning  and  power.  He  who 
is  the  ground  of  the  world's  order,  He  in  whom  all 
things  consist,  reveals  Himself  that  we  may  know 
what  its  order  and  consistency  are,  how  all  disor- 
der and  inconsistency  have  arisen  from  the  discon- 
tent and  rebellion  of  our  wills.  Now  an  opposite 
feeling  to  this  seems  to  characterize  those  who  are 
noticing  the  present  distractions  of  the  world,  and 
are  suggesting  how,  in  this  day  or  hereafter,  they 
may  be  removed.  All  seem  to  assume  that  the 
constitution  of  things  is  evil;  not  that  we  are  evil 
in  departing  from  it.  With  strange  unanimity, 
eager  politicians,  restless  ecclesiastics,  hopeful  mil- 
lenarians,  seem  to  take  it  for  granted  that  the 
Devil  is  lord  of  the  universe :  only  that  by  an  im- 
provement in  the  arrangements  of  civil  life,  by  a 
stronger  assertion  of  priestly  authority,  or  by  the 
final  coming  of  the  Son  of  man,  the  evil  power  may 
be  weakened  or  broken.  Which  sentiment,  by 
whomsoever  entertained,  is  surely  unchristian  and 
ungodly.  The  holiest  men  protested  against  it  be- 
fore our  Lord's  coming.  Though  the  Kingdom  was 
not  yet  shown  to  be  a  kingdom  for  the  whole  earth, 
they  believed  that  it  was ;  they  declared  its  laws, 
testified  that  heathens  were  at  war  with  their  own 
proper  ruler;  told  the  chosen  race  that  by  their 
evil  acts  as  kings,  priests,  people,  they  were  break- 
ing the  everlasting  covenant.     Any  other  language 


34  SERMON  III. 

since  Christ  has  come  is,  practically,  a  renuncia- 
tion of  His  authority,  and  a  denial  of  His  incarna- 
tion. Those  who  use  it  cannot  effectually  connect 
the  command  "Repent"  with  the  announcement 
"  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  at  hand;"  though  our 
Lord's  example  forbids  us  ever  to  separate  them. 
For  they  cannot  say,  "  There  has  been  a  holy, 
blessed  order  among  you,  which  you  have  been 
darkening,  confounding,  hiding  from  men,  by  your 
sins  and  selfishness  ;  but  which  must  and  will  assert 
itself,  in  spite  of  you  and  of  all  that  resist  it." 
Were  this  mode  of  speaking  generally  adopl^d  by 
pastors  and  preachers,  their  hearers  might  be  led 
each  to  ask  himself,  What  have  I  done  to  frustrate 
the  ends  for  which  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  has 
been  established  upon  earth  ?  how  can  I  cease  my 
strife  with  it,  and  become  its  obedient  subject?  a 
question  which,  instead  of  destroying  their  interest 
in  the  doings  of  the  world  generally,  would  make 
that  interest  practical  and  personal ;  instead  of  les- 
sening their  hopes  of  the  time  when  the  darkness 
shall  pass  away  and  the  true  light  shall  shine  out 
fully,  would  make  them  less  earnest  in  guessing 
about  it,  than  in  preparing  for  it. 

II.  But  if  our  Lord  spoke  thus  of  His  Kingdom, 
did  He  frown  upon  the  wishes  and  longings  of  those 
who  would  cast  this  world  behind  them,  and  project 
their  thoughts  wholly  into  a  future  state  ?  So  far 
as  any  thing  in  their  anticipations  is  incompatible 
with  an  entire  recognition  of  the  sacredness  of  our 
life  here ;  so  far  as  they  imply  the  Manichsean 
notion,  that  the  earth,  or  the  flesh,  is  the  devil's 


THY  KINGDOM  COME.  35 

creature  and  property;  so  far  as  they  utter  a 
merely  selfish  cry  for  escape  from  toil  and  warfare  ; 
He  certainly  gives  them  no  encouragement,  who 
hallowed  all  human  life,  who  overcame  the  Evil 
Spirit,  whose  own  garments  were  dipped  in  blood. 
But  this,  we  must  all  confess,  is  only  the  dark  and 
feeble  side  of  a  faith  which  is,  in  itself,  gracious 
and  inspiring.  To  despair  of  the  present  must  be 
bad ;  to  hope  for  the  future  must  be  good.  And 
this  hope  our  Lord  cherishes  and  confirms,  as 
much  as  he  disowns  that  despair.  Think  of  those 
words  which  came  with  such  power  to  the  mind  of 
a  scribe  who  had  maintained  the  doctrine  of  a  re- 
surrection always,  but  had  probably  never  before 
felt  it  to  be  a  reality :  "  As  touching  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  dead,  have  ye  not  read  what  was  spoken 
to  you  by  God,  saying,  I  am  the  God  of  Abraham, 
and  Isaac,  and  Jacob  ?  He  is  not  the  God  of  the 
dead,  but  of  the  living;  for  all  live  unto  him." 
What  are  all  speculations  about  separate  states  and 
intermediate  existences  to  this  celestial  sentence  ? 
Those  whom  you  read  of  in  ages  gone  by,  who 
sometimes  stand  out  in  such  clear  individuality, 
who  sometimes  melt  into  shadows,  all  live ;  for  He 
lives  from  whom  their  life  came.  Nothing  of  it  is 
departed,  only  the  death  which  encompassed  it. 
They  have  lost  no  personality.  Here,  there  was 
but  the  first  dawn  of  it.  They  were  beginning 
feebly  to  be  conscious  of  powers ;  to  recognise  dis- 
tinctions ;  to  feel  after  unity.  He  was  educating 
their  affections  through  the  first  stage  of  infancy ; 
their  reason,  in  its  struggles  to  know  its  object ; 


86  SERMON  III. 

their  will,  in  its  endeavours  to  be  obedient :  who  is 
now  bringing  them  into  more  wonderful  affinities, 
infinitely  deeper  apprehensions,  a  perfect  liberty. 
And  what  is  true  of  them  is  true  of  all  who  have 
yielded  to  the  same  guidance,  who  have  desired  the 
same  light.  All  live  to  Him,  with  not  one  sympathy 
impaired  or  raised  too  high  for  human  interests. 
With  Him,  as  the  common  centre  of  all  their 
thoughts  and  adorations,  every  thing  which  He  be- 
stowed specially  upon  each  is,  necessarily,  quick- 
ened and  perfected,  and  finds  its  relation  to  the 
gift  of  every  other.  With  Him  as  their  centre  they 
must  care  for  all  whom  He  cares  for,  but  still,  one 
would  suppose,  be  knit  closest  in  all  bands  of  at- 
tachment and  service  to  those  with  whom  it  was 
His  pleasure,  by  holy  pledges  imperfectly  under- 
stood, to  unite  them  below.  Such  thoughts  followed 
out,  not  by  the  fancy,  but  by  the  most  legitimate 
reflection  upon  the  state  which  must  remain  if  the 
infirmities  and  sins  of  earth  were  purged  away, 
would  surely  go  far  to  satisfy  men  who  have  learnt 
to  mourn  over  the  meanness  and  incoherency  of 
our  earthly  existence,  considered  by  itself.  And 
our  Lord's  own  resurrection,  and  His  appearances 
to  his  disciples  after  he  was  risen,  which  were  so 
brief,  and  yet  carried  with  them  such  a  wonderful 
witness  of  a  perpetual  presence, — these  translate 
His  words  into  life,  and  declare  that  our  existence 
is  not  rounded  with  a  sleep ;  or  that  it  is  a  sleep  in 
Him  at  whose  voice  all  creation  was  first  awaked, 
and  will  wake  again.  With  such  thoughts,  bre- 
thren, wc  may  comfort  ourselves  when  wc  pray, 


THY  KINGDOM  COME.  37 

*'  Thy  Kingdom  come."  But  we  must  not  think  that 
we  are  waiting  for  death  to  solve  a  problem  which 
is  not  solved  yet.  The  death  of  Him  who  took 
away  the  sins  of  the  world,  solved  it  at  once  and 
for  ever ;  we  only  die  to  understand  how  perfect 
the  solution  is. 

III.  But  this  we  shall  not  understand  if  we  sup- 
pose that  while  our  Lord  sanctioned  the  expecta- 
tions of  those  M'ho  look  for  a  better  government  of 
this  world,  and  of  those  who  look  for  a  world  after 
death,  He  did  not  include  in  His  gift  and  promise 
the  satisfaction  of  those  who  feel  that  they  want 
not  a  visible  kingdom,  but  a  kingdom  of  righteous- 
ness, truth,  love  ;  not  a  future,  but  an  eternal  king- 
dom. To  them  and  to  their  hopes  we  may  say  that 
He  spoke  first.  He  awakened  their  longing,  He 
met  them  before  He  could  respond  to  the  others. 
"  For  now,"  said  John  the  Baptist,  "the  axe  is  laid 
to  the  root  of  the  trees."  He  who  is  at  hand  is 
not  coming  to  deal  with  external  circumstances, 
but  first  with  the  being  to  whom  those  circumstances 
belong.  Our  Lord  spoke  straight  to  the  conscience, 
reason,  will,  in  man,  which  were  asking  after  the 
Unseen,  which  were  seeking  for  a  Father.  Even 
by  his  bodily  cures  He  showed  that  He  was  the 
Lord  of  the  unseen  influences  which  produce  the 
outward  signs  of  disease  and  decay.  When  he  cast 
out  evil  spirits.  He  bore  witness  that  He  was  hold- 
ing converse  with  the  spirit  of  man,  that  with  the 
pride,  lust,  hatred,  the  powers  of  spiritual  wicked- 
ness in  high  places  which  have  enslaved  us,  He  was 
carrying  on  His  great  controversy.  By  this  victory 
4 


38  SERMON  III. 

He  accomplished  His  great  work.  He  manifested 
forth  the  true  state  and  glory  of  man,  as  the  child 
of  God,  and  the  inheritor  of  truth  and  righteousness, 
and  built  His  Church  upon  that  foundation  of  His 
own  divine  humanity,  against  which  the  gates  of 
hell  shall  not  prevail.  Here,  in  this  inner  region, 
in  this  root  of  man's  being,  He  is  still  subduing  His 
enemies.  He  is  conducting  His  mysterious  educa- 
tion. To  that  which  he  cultivates  within  us,  He 
promises  the  great  reward,  the  knowledge  of  Him 
who  is,  and  was,  and  is  to  come.  But  be  it  ever 
remembered,  that  while  he  gives  all  encouragement 
to  the  highest  desires  of  man's  heart  and  reason, 
He  gives  none  whatever  to  any  mystical  conceits 
and  imaginations.  "  The  axe  is  laid  to  the  root  of 
the  tree ;  therefore  every  tree  which  bringeth  not 
forth  good  fruit  is  hewn  down  and  cast  into  the 
fire."  The  kingdom  of  God  begins  within,  but  it 
is  to  make  itself  manifest  without.  It  is  to  pene- 
trate the  feelings,  habits,  thoughts,  words,  acts,  of 
him  who  is  the  subject  of  it.  At  last  it  is  to  pene- 
trate our  whole  social  existence,  to  mould  all  things 
according  to  its  laws. 

For  this  we  pray  when  we  say,  "  Thy  Kingdom 
come."  We  desire  that  the  King  of  kings  and 
Lord  of  lords  will  reign  over  our  spirits  and  souls 
and  bodies,  which  are  His,  and  which  He  has  re- 
deemed. We  pray  for  the  extinction  of  all  tyranny, 
whether  lodged  in  particular  men  or  in  multitudes; 
for  the  exposure  and  destruction  of  corruptions,  in- 
ward and  outward ;  for  the  truth  in  all  departments 
of  government,  art,  science ;  for  the  true  dignity 


THY  WILL  BE  DONE.  39 

of  professions ;  for  right  dealings  in  the  commonest 
transactions  of  trade ;  for  blessings  that  shall  be 
felt  in  every  hovel.  We  pray  for  these  things, 
knowing  that  we  pray  according  to  God's  will ; 
knowing  that  He  will  hear  us.  If  He  had  not 
heard  this  prayer  going  up  from  tens  of  thousands 
in  all  ages,  the  earth  would  have  been  a  den  of 
robbers.  He  will  so  answer  it,  that  all  which  He 
lias  made  shall  become  as  it  was  when  He  beheld 
it  on  the  seventh  day,  and,  lo,  it  was  very  good. 


SERMON  IV. 


(Eiuinqtiagesima  Qunbap,  iHarcli  5, 184S. 

Thy  will  be  done,  as  in  heaven,  so  in  earth. — Luke  xi.  2. 

The  prayer  we  considered  last  week  could  not 
easily  be  separated  from  the  spectacle  which  we 
had  just  witnessed,  of  a  fallen  kingdom.  Since 
that  time  we  have  been  watching  attempts  to  con- 
struct a  new  society  out  of  the  ruins  of  the  old. 
If  I  do  not  mistake,  many  have  regarded  these  ex- 
periments with  greater  impatience,  with  less  com- 
placency, than  the  events  which  preceded  them, 
and  made  them  necessary.  Such  words  as  these 
have  risen  very  readily  to  our  lips :  "  What  a  weary 
repetition  is  here  of  a  thrice-told  tale !  Is  it  pos- 
sible that  phrases  which  have  been  tested  and  found 


40  SERMON  IV. 

hollow  nearly  sixty  years  ago,  are  still  fit  for  use 
and  circulation  now  ?  Can  it  be  that  we  must  pass 
through  another  series  of  the  same  false  promises, 
vain  hopes,  bitter  disappointments,  the  same  dreams 
of  peace  realized  in  blood,  which  were  appointed 
for  the  last  generation  ?"  Not  to  entertain  thoughts 
of  this  kind  is  diflficult — difficult  even  not  to  give 
them  expression.  Yet  when  they  are  spoken  they 
must  drive  others  to  ask,  while  we  harbour  them, 
does  not  the  question  present  itself  to  ourselves — 
Is  then  the  belief  a  phantasy,  that  men  are  in- 
tended for  a  brotherhood  ?  Must  the  effort  to  rea- 
lize it  terminate  in  ridicule  or  in  crime  ?  Supposing 
that  is  the  fact,  should  we  begin  with  accusing  other 
men  of  deception?  Have  we  not  a  long  list  of 
falsehoods  to  confess  which  we  have  been  proclaim- 
ing ourselves — in  pulpits  especially,  which  have 
been  proclaimed  throughout  Christendom  for  nearly 
1800  years? 

Such  an  inquiry  may,  no  doubt,  be  evaded  by 
the  reply:  "Oh!  we  do  not  take  Christianity  into 
account.  That,  of  course,  may  effect  any  thing. 
We  complain  of  those  who  think  they  can  work  all 
good  to  their  species  without  it."  But  our  con- 
science will  not  be  so  appeased.  It  will  rejoin, 
"And  if  you  take  Christianity  into  account,  what 
then  ?  You  know  that  it  will  not  of  course  set  the 
world  right.  Do  you  believe  seriously  in  your 
heart,  that  it  can  set  the  world  right  at  all,  under 
any  conditions  ?  If  not,  you  should  not  pretend  to 
believe  it.  Certainly  this  end  will  not  be  accom- 
plished by  phrases  and  professions.     These  are  not 


THY  WILL  BE  DONE.  41 

the  least  better  when  they  are  coined  in  one  mint 
than  in  another.  It  does  not  help  us  more  to  talk 
of  brotherhood  on  Christian  principles,  than  of 
brotherhood  upon  any  other  principles.  The  more 
sacred  the  language,  the  more  offensive  is  any 
trifling  use  of  it.  We  must  not  blame  our  neigh- 
bours for  trying  to  make  men  brothers  without  the 
Gospel,  if  we  are  not  ourselves  convinced  that  the 
Gospel  can  make  them  so."  There  is  still  another 
resource  which  I  know  is  commonly  adopted  by 
those  who  seek  to  escape  from  this  difiiculty.  They 
say,  "  Christianity  declares  to  us  the  exceeding 
sinfulness  of  the  human  heart  and  will.  There  is 
the  root  of  all  the  confusions  and  miseries  of  the 
world.  What  mockery  then  to  reform  it  by  new 
schemes  of  government  and  society !"  Christianity 
does,  no  doubt,  declare  to  us,  or  rather  assumes, 
the  exceeding  selfishness  of  man's  heart.  But  it 
comes  not  proclaiming  sin,but  proclaiming  a  remedy 
for  it.  Do  we  believe  the  remedy  to  be  effectual? 
If  not,  in  what  sense  do  we  call  ourselves  Chris- 
tians? If  we  do,  how  dare  we  blaspheme  Chris- 
tianity by  calling  her  to  prove  that  evil,  social  evil 
or  individual,  is  inevitable  ?  We  cannot  then  avoid 
the  inquiry,  severe  though  it  must  be  to  most  of 
us,  What  have  you  meant  hitherto  by  this  prayer, 
"Thy  Will  be  done,  as  in  heaven,  so  in  earth?" 
What  have  you  taken  the  Will  of  God  the  Father 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  to  be  ?  How  do  you  sup- 
pose it  is  done  in  heaven  ?  What  is  implied  in 
asking,  that  even  so  it  may  be  done  on  earth  ? 
I.  It  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  identify  this 
4* 


42  SERMON  IV. 

petition  with  that  which  I  spoke  of  a  fortnight  ago. 
The  Name  denotes  that  which  a  Person  is  in  him- 
self, his  own  character.  This  is  an  object  of 
contemplation ;  it  is  to  be  hallowed.  A  Will  im- 
ports energy  going  forth ;  it  points  to  action,  to 
effect ;  it  is  to  be  done.  It  is  very  needful  for  the 
clearness  of  our  minds,  and  for  great  practical  re- 
sults, to  remember  this  distinction.  But  it  is  equally 
needful  to  remember  that  the  Name  and  the  Will 
exactly  correspond  to  each  other,  that  at  all  events 
in  a  Perfect  Being  there  cannot  be  the  slightest 
clashing  or  contrariety  between  them.  Nay  more  ; 
if  the  Name  is  that  which  has  been  revealed  to  us 
as  the  Name  of  God;  if  it  expresses  goodness, 
mercy,  loving-kindness,  we  cannot  think  of  it  at 
all  without  thinking  of  a  Will,  directed  towards 
other  beings,  and  exercising  itself  upon  them.  To 
identify  Will  with  mere  Sovereignty,  is  to  destroy 
the  earlier  petition.  We  cannot  hallow  the  Name 
of  God,  if  we  suppose  power  to  be  his  most  essen- 
tial characteristic,  or  the  manifestation  of  power  to 
be  His  chief  delight.  This  notion  of  Him  is  evi- 
dently fashioned  out  of  our  own  low  appetites  and 
base  fancies ;  it  is  the  notion  which  lies  at  the  root 
of  the  dark  fables  of  heathenism.  The  whole  Re- 
velation which  is  delivered  in  the  Old  and  New 
Testament  is  nothing  else  than  a  continuous  pro- 
test against  it,  or  rather  a  continuous  unfolding  of 
the  truth  from  which  it  is  a  departure.  It  assaults 
the  natural  tendency  of  our  minds,  which  is  to  wor- 
ship all  the  different  shapes  and  appearances  of 
power  that  we  discern  in  the  world  around  us ;  it 


THY  WILL  BE  DONE.  43 

leads  us  to  feel  that  we  need  some  power  of  an  al- 
together higher  and  different  kind  to  rule  ourselves ; 
it  shows  us  that  this  power  must  be  a  Will;  that  it 
must  be  moral ;  that  righteousness  must  be  its  es- 
sence, power  its  instrument.  A  God  of  righteous- 
ness and  truth,  just  and  without  iniquity,  is  He 
whom  the  Bible  speaks  of,  He  who  presents  Him- 
self to  the  conscience,  heart,  will,  of  His  creatures, 
as  the  Author  of  all  that  is  right  and  good  in  them 
and  in  the  universe. 

When  we  say.  Thy  Will,  this  must  be  the  sense 
in  which  our  Lord  would  have  us  speak  the  words. 
To  enter  into  the  inmost  recesses  of  that  AVill,  was 
His  only,  who  perfectly  delighted  in  it.  But  we 
are  sure,  that  were  it  possible  for  us  to  know  as  He 
knew,  we  should  not  discover  a  difference  of  pur- 
pose, another  kind  of  Will  than  that  which  His  acts 
exhibited ;  we  should  only  behold  that  infinite  abys- 
mal love,  which,  through  our  evil  and  selfishness, 
had  been  hidden  from  us.  It  would  be  well  for  us, 
brethren,  if  we  were  more  careful  of  insulting  the 
Majesty  of  Heaven  in  our  confession  of  ignorance 
as  well  as  in  our  boast  of  knowledge.  We  have  no 
right  to  say,  We  are  such  poor  creatures,  we  cannot 
tell  the  least  what  are  the  designs  of  God;  we  can 
only  submit  to  his  irresistible  pleasure.  It  is  pre- 
cisely His  design  which  He  has  made  known  to  us ; 
what  His  Will  is  to  the  human  race  and  each  of 
His  members,  is  not  one  of  the  secrets  which  He 
withholds  from  us  and  from  our  children.  Nor  is 
there  any  real  awe  of  Him  while  we  choose  to  think 
our  own  thoughts  instead  of  His,  whilst  we  insist 
upon  doing  homage  to  a  dreary,  naked  Omnipotence. 


44  SERMON  IV.      ' 

For,  however  we  may  fancy  that  there  is  something 
at  once  humbling  and  elevating  in  the  thought  of 
that  which  may  crush  and  may  uphold  us,  it  is  not 
a  contemplation  in  which  we  care  to  abide ;  the 
spirit  within  us  soon  starts  up  from  the  momentary 
depression  it  has  caused,  soon  betakes  itself  to  other 
and  more  natural  ways  of  realizing  its  own  dignity. 
We  want  a  mightier  charm  than  this;  we  want  the 
belief  and  knowledge  of  a  Will  that  is  always  ori- 
ginating and  effectuating  good — good,  and  nothing 
else.  Before  such  a  Being,  the  spirit  of  man  trem- 
bles; in  His  presence  it  feels  its  own  nothingness; 
to  Him  it  can  look  up,  and  be  sure  that  he  is  raising 
it.  Hence  comes  a  conviction,  not  of  weakness, 
but  of  sin ;  the  sense,  not  that  we  have  been  unable 
to  resist,  but  that  we  have  actually  resisted  that 
power  which  is  working  for  the  deliverance  and 
blessedness  of  us  and  of  our  whole  race.  A  power  we 
shall  then  joyfully  confess  it  to  be,  when  we  know 
that  it  is  not  that  merely  or  principally.  We  could 
not  bear  to  suppose — it  would  be  the  most  flagrant 
of  contradictions — that  a  perfectly  Loving  Will  was 
ever  idle,  that  it  was  not  continually  energizing, 
continually  accomplishing  its  own  deep  and  gracious 
ends.  Where  the  limit  is  to  their  accomplishment, 
how  it  is  possible  that  a  creature  Will  can  contend 
with  that  which  has  formed  it ;  by  what  mysterious 
concurrence,  which  cannot  be  understood  in  either 
alone,  obedience  is  produced  out  of  rebellion — here 
is  a  depth  indeed,  in  which  we  may  be  content  not 
to  see  our  way ;  here  u  that  secret  which,  except 
in  life  and  practice,  we  never  penetrate.     I  say 


THY  WILL  BE  DONE.  45 

except  in  life  and  practice  ;  for  vre  can  and  Jo  know 
in  our  own  experience  the  fact  of  resistance  and 
the  law  of  submission.  We  do  know  that  every 
evil  act  has  been  one  against  which  there  was  a  di- 
vine remonstrance  within  us ;  we  do  know  that  this 
act  has  brought  disorder  and  contradiction  after 
it;  we  do  know  that,  not  we  ourselves,  but  He,  who 
has  curbed  us  and  forewarned  us  of  the  evil,  has 
wrought  the  repentance  for  it ;  since  only  when  we 
confessed  the  wrong  and  cried  to  be  made  right 
were  we  brought  into  our  true  state.  Thus  much 
every  man  may  know  in  himself;  but  to  generalize 
from  this  experience  is  a  more  difficult  process  than 
we  sometimes  suspect.  The  logical  terms  in  which 
we  express  our  conclusions  are  even  less  adequate 
to  describe  the  subtle  operations  of  spirit  than  those 
of  nature ;  we  should  not,  therefore,  suifer  them  to 
embarrass  us  either  in  our  dealings  with  our  indi- 
vidual consciences,  or  in  our  judgments  respecting 
the  purposes  of  God.  Generalities  are  not  accu- 
rate enough  for  the  one ;  they  are  far  too  narrow 
for  the  other.  A  man  cannot  be  honest  in  action 
if  he  applies  maxims  and  formulas  about  the  extent 
of  prescience  and  human  power  to  his  own  parti- 
cular conduct;  he  must  be  profane  and  false  if  he 
uses  them  to  measure  the  Eternal  Mind.  By  a 
strange  perversity  those  who  are  using  their  intel- 
lects to  determine  what  must  be  the  acts  and  inten- 
tions of  God,  resent  every  appeal,  though  grounded 
on  express  revelation,  to  his  moral  nature ;  as  if  it 
implied  that  we  were  circumscribing  Him  by  our 
own  imperfections.     But  this  appeal  is  a  witness 


46  SERMON  IV. 

against  all  such  circumspection.  We  say,  that  we 
must  acknowledge  the  absolute  goodness  of  that 
Will,  which  was  manifested  in  act  by  the  only-be- 
gotten Son,  or  we  shall  make  it  merely  the  image 
of  our  own.  We  must  have  an  invariable  standard 
to  which  we  can  refer  ourselves ;  or  we  shall  make 
ourselves,  with  all  our  variations  and  contradictions, 
the  standard.  We  must  not  let  logical  formulas, 
or  deductions  from  our  own  experience,  and  the 
world's  experience,  or  possible  dangers,  or  the  fear 
of  losing  plausible  topics  of  declamation,  come  in 
the  way  of  the  strict  simple  use  of  this  prayer,  or 
force  us  to  mean  something  less  by  the  words,  Thy 
Will,  than  a  Will  of  efficient  good  to  every  creature ; 
otherwise  we  shall  either  be  contracting  our  own 
love  within  limits  which  God  commands  us  to  trans- 
gress, or  blasphemously  suppose  that  it  is,  at  some 
point  or  other,  greater  than  His.  At  all  hazards, 
in  despite  of  all  reasonings  and  all  authority,  cling 
to  the  prayer.  That  will  never  do  you  harm,  or 
lead  you  astray.  The  more  we  use  it,  in  the  faith 
that  the  Will  we  ask  should  be  done  is  the  right 
loving  and  blessed  Will,  the  more  we  shall  know 
that  it  is,  the  more  we  shall  be  sure  that  it  must 
be  done.  We  shall  meet  every  day  with  a  set  of 
new  impediments  to  that  conviction ;  at  times,  it 
will  seem  the  most  monstrous  and  incredible  of  all 
convictions ;  then  when  it  does,  the  prayer  is  spe- 
cially needed  to  raise  us  above  the  plausible  lies  of 
our  understandings ;  to  place  us  in  a  point  of  view 
whence  we  can  see  the  truth  which  surmounts  them. 
That  point  of  view  is  obtained  when  our  state  is 


THY  WILL  BE  DONE.  47 

the  lowliest;  we  must  sink,  not  rise,  if  we  would 
feel  our  relation  to  the  Will  which  is  guiding  all 
creation ;  the  Cross  is  at  once  the  complete  utter- 
ance of  the  prayer  and  the  answer  to  it. 

II.  For  it  is  the  Cross  which  tells  us  how  this 
will  is  done  in  Heaven.  We  should  be  giving  an 
intelligible  sense  to  this  clause,  if  we  took  heaven 
in  its  simplest,  most  outward  sense,  as  synonymous 
with  what  we  call  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  if  we 
supposed  the  prayer  to  be  that,  as  all  these  silently 
and  calmly  obey  the  law  which  was  given  them  on 
the  fourth  day,  so  the  voluntary  creatures  of  God, 
who  have  set  His  will  at  naught,  might  be  brought 
into  a  submission  as  complete,  into  an  order  as  un- 
broken and  harmonious.  There  would  be  a  deep 
significance  in  such  a  petition,  though  we  should 
need  great  caution  to  prevent  it  from  turning  into 
the  most  unchristian  and  dreadful  of  all  desires — 
the  desire  to  be  free  from  responsibility,  to  lose  our 
wills,  to  become  mere  natural  creatures.  And  I 
do  not  think  any  one  who  has  prayed  the  Lord's 
Prayer  ever  rested  in  this  interpretation,  even  if 
it  might  be  cherished  for  a  moment.  The  general 
feeling  of  Christian  people  has  been  that  this  Will 
is  done  in  heaven,  not  by  blind  agents,  but  by  in- 
telligent, spiritual,  creatures  ;  by  wills  which  might 
have  fallen,  but  which  stood  in  holy,  cheerful  obe- 
dience. Of  such  beings  Scripture  speaks  often  ; 
their  existence  it  assumes  throughout ;  only  it  does 
not  indulge  us  with  any  such  account  of  their  con- 
dition and  circumstances  as  would  lead  us  away 
from  that  one  great  truth  of  their  history,  in  which 


48  SERMON  IV. 

all  others  are  included:  "They  do  His  command- 
ments, hearkening  to  the  voice  of  His  word."  We 
have,  in  the  Bible,  no  description  of  celestial  hie- 
rarchies, such  as  the  schoolmen  of  the  middle  ages 
■were  wont  to  draw  out :  above  all,  none  of  those 
expressions  respecting  the  angelic  nature  by  which 
many  modern  writers  indicate  their  belief  that  it  is 
essentially  different  from  our  own.  The  more  care- 
fully you  consider  the  passages  in  Scripture  con- 
cerning angels,  the  more  you  will  be  struck  with 
the  use  of  a  language  which  seems  almost  to  con- 
found them  with  men.  And  why,  but  because 
Scripture  never  for  an  instant  contemplates  the 
derangement  of  man's  state,  which  is  the  conse- 
quence of  his  disobedience,  as  determining  what 
that  state  is.  It  looks  upon  the  unfallen  creature, 
or  the  creature  renewed  after  the  fall,  as  the  pro- 
per representative  of  humanity — not  upon  one  who 
is  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins ;  it  never  treats  an 
anomaly  as  a  law.  "  Their  angels,"  says  our  Lord, 
"  do  always  behold  the  face  of  my  Father  in  heaven  ; 
for  the  Son  of  Man  is  come  to  seek  and  to  save 
that  which  was  lost."  The  true  form  of  human  ex- 
istence and  society  has  not  perished  because  cer- 
tain fragments  have  been  severed  from  it ;  the 
flock  was  not  destroyed  because  a  set  of  sheep  had 
wandered  from  it:  but  He,  in  whom  the  whole 
harmony  stood  perfect,  came  to  re-unite'the  frag- 
ments ;  the  Shepherd  came  into  the  wilderness  to 
carry  home  rejoicing  the  lost  one.  It  is  the  effect 
of  our  sin  to  make  us  look >pon^  ourselves  as  the 
centres  of  the  universe ;  and  then  to  look  upon  the 


TIIY  WILL  BE  DONE.  49 

p'erverse  and  miserable  accidents  of  our  condition 
as  determining  what  Ave  ourselves  are :  so  all  the 
manifestations  of  God  are  treated  as  if  they  were 
merely  appropriate  to  those  accidents,  till  we  learn 
at  last  to  think  of  sin,  not  as  that  which  takes  us 
out  of  the  harmony  God  has  established,  but  as 
that  which  has  been  able  to  subvert  the  harmony ; 
to  frustrate  the  Divine  will.  To  feel  sin,  as  we  are 
intended  to  feel  it,  seems  almost  impossible  while 
we  adopt  this  scheme ;  still  more,  to  feel  the  might 
and  mystery  of  redemption.  But  if  we  contemplate 
the  Son  of  Man  as  the  Lord  of  the  unfallen  as  well 
as  of  the  fallen  creation,  if  we  believe  that  He  per- 
fectly fulfilled  that  Will  under  all  the  conditions  of 
temptation  and  misery  upon  earth,  which  He  had 
fulfilled  before  the  worlds  were,  our  minds  become 
quieter  and  more  hopeful.  Let  Science  discover 
to  us  as  many  myriads  of  Avorlds  as  it  may ;  let 
each  of  these  myriads  of  worlds  be  peopled  Avith 
myriads  of  creatures ;  we  know,  if  they  are  invo- 
luntary, they  are  subject  to  the  same  Will  Avhich 
rules  every  animal  and  vegetable  on  this  planet: 
if  they  are  voluntary,  their  state  must  be  one  of 
cheerful  dependence  upon  that  Will,  or  else  of  re- 
bellion against  it.  There  must  be  an  order  for 
them,  and  it  must  be  a  blessed  order.  Space  and 
time  can  make  no  diftcrence  in  that  which  concerns 
the  Eternal  government ;  in  the  principles  of  obe- 
dience, disobedience,  redemption.  And  however 
darkly  Ave  may  see  into  these  things,  we  are  sure 
of  this  prayer  "as  in  Heaven;"  Ave  are  sure  that 
Ave  are  not  presuming  .when  we  believe  it  and  offer 
6    ■ 


50  SERMON  IV. 

it  up.  As  we -do  so,  the  fetters  of  time  and  space 
become  more  and  more  loosened  through  His  might 
who  willingly  took  them  upon  Himself,  and  then 
ascended  up  on  high,  leading  captivity  captive,  that 
he  might  fill  all  things.  It  becomes  no  hard  eifort 
to  suppose  the  existence  of  multitudes  of  blessed 
creatures,  formed  and  kept  in  the  image  of  him 
who  said  "Even  so,  Father,  for  so  it  seemed  good 
in  Thy  sight ;"  or  to  believe  that  mysteries  of  love 
have  been  revealed  to  them,  through  our  fall  and 
redemption,  which  they  desire  more  deeply  to  look 
into;  or  to  feel  that  they  must  rejoice  over  one 
sinner  who  repenteth. 

III.  And  therefore  the  prayer  may  well  go  on, 
"Thy  will  be  done,  as  in  heaven,  so  on  earth." 
Holding  fast  the  testimony  of  Christ  respecting 
His  Father's  will ;  believing  that  it  is  continually 
at  work  to  execute  His  purposes ;  believing  that 
there  are  multitudes  of  wills  in  whom  it  does  work 
oflfectually,  triumphantly,  who  obey  it  and  are  free ; 
believing,  lastly,  that  He  who  guides  them,  and  to 
whom  they  do  homage,  has  taken  account  of  this 
earth  for  the  purpose  of  restoring  those  who  dwell 
upon  it  to  submission,  liberty,  unity,  we  can  ask 
without  fear  that  all  which  resists  this  Will  in  one 
place  or  another,  may  be  brought  to  acquiesce  in 
it,  and  to  become  its  cheerful  servant  and  child. 
If  place  makes  no  difference  in  the  view  which  we 
take  of  those  who  confess  this  Will,  and  yield  them- 
selves to  it,  place  can  make  no  difference  in  its 
power  of  reaching  and  subduing  those  who  have 
been  refractory.     There  is  nothing,  surely,  in  this 


THY  WILL  BE  DONE.  51 

fair  eartli  to  make  it  an  unfit  dwelling  for  all  that 
is  pure  and  gracious.  It  is  the  revolted  will  which 
interposes  the  one  barrier  to  all  communications 
from  above,  to  union  and  fellowship  below.  The 
selfish,  self-seeking  spirit  says,  "  Thy  Will  be  not 
■done ;"  love  shall  not  have  dominion  here :  supposing 
that  demon  cast  out,  supposing  the  spirit  of  man 
brought  to  desire  that  it  should  serve  in  heaven, 
instead  of  reigning  in  hell;  and  the  earth,  the 
battle-field  between  them,  which  Christ  won  when 
He  gave  up  Himself,  becomes  not  potentially  but 
actually  God's :  by  its  own  acknowledgment,  as 
well  as  by  His  victory.  And  we  know,  assuredly, 
that  spirits  which  have  yielded  themselves  to  the 
tyranny  of  the  evil  power  are,  day  by  day,  set  free 
from  its  yoke ;  that  God,  by  the  mighty  instruments 
which  He  has  wrested  out  of  the  hands  of  His  ene- 
mies, by  individual  sorrows,  by  national  calamities, 
does  lead  men  to  feel  that  it  is  better  to  live  in  their 
Father's  house,  than  to  feed  upon  husks,  or  to 
starve.  If  we  do  not  think  so,  why  do  we  use  this 
prayer  ?  what  sense  is  there  in  it  ?  what  hope  can 
we  have  from  it  ?  If  we  confess  so  much,  how  can 
we  ever  make  it  a  charge  against  any  people,  that 
they  hope  for  a  brotherhood  upon  earth  ?  To  tell 
them,  if  that  is  the  case,  that  they  are  not  resting 
their  expectations  on  a  safe  ground ;  that  there  is 
no  brotherhood,  unless  we  begin  with  confessing  a 
Father ;  that  we  must  attain  it  by  giving  up  our- 
selves to  do  His  Will;  that  if  we  set  up  our  own, 
we  are  enthroning  the  very  principle  Avhich  has 
made  all  unity  impossible  :  this  is  right,  this  is  be- 


52  SERMON  IV. 

nevolent.  But  we  have  scarcely  a  right  to  dispos- 
sess a  man  of  a  pleasant  dream  unless  we  can  give 
him  a  reality  in  place  for  it ;  for  every  hope  points 
upwards  :  if  it  does  not  find  an  object,  it  is  in  search 
of  one ;  you  cannot  crush  it  without  robbing  your 
fellow-creature  of  a  witness  for  God,  and  an  instru- 
ment of  purification.  I  do  not  mean  that  false- 
hood can  ever  do  good  to  a  human  soul,  or  be 
any  thing  except  a  curse  to  it ;  but  I  mean  that 
hope  is  a  deliverance  out  of  the  falsehood  of  sense, 
and  that  there  is  a  truth  always  corresponding  to 
it,  which  is  missed,  not  because  the  hope  is  too 
strong,  but  because  inconsistent  elements  are 
mingled  with  it,  which  weaken  and  debase  it. 
Therefore  let  us  labour  diligently  to  clear  ourselves 
of  all  such  mixtures.  One  I  referred  to  before, 
and  will  speak  of  now.  We  say  that  Christianity 
can  bring  about  a  true  fraternity  among  men.  But 
this  is  an  elliptical  mode  of  speech,  and  may  be  a 
misleading  one.  Christianity,  as  a  mere  system  of 
doctrines  or  practices,  will  never  make  men  brothers. 
By  Christianity  we  must  understand  the  reconcili- 
ation of  mankind  to  God  in  Christ;  we  must  un- 
derstand the  power  and  privilege  of  saying,  "  Our 
Father — Thy  Will  be  done  in  earth  as  it  is  in 
heaven."  No  notion,  or  set  of  notions,  will  bind 
us  together ;  He  binds  us  who  has  given  His  Son 
for  us  all,  that  we  might  not  live  for  ever  in  sepa- 
ration from  Him  and  from  each  other.  There  is 
another  error  which  is,  perhaps,  in  practice,  even 
more  fatal.  We  are  apt  to  say,  "  These  largo 
schemes  of  the  universe,  which  we  hear  so  much  of, 


THY  WILL  BE  DONE.  53 

are  vain ;  what  good  can  come  of  them  ?  let  us  try 
to  do  our  duty  each  in  his  own  sphere."     An  ex- 
cellent resolution :  but,  too  often,  adopted  merely 
in  spite,  and  therefore  leading  to  no  result.     We 
exalt  the  little  for  the  sake  of  disparaging  the  large ; 
presently  we  grow  weary  of  not  doing  more ;  we 
fly  back  to  great  schemes  which  we  have  pronounced 
abortive :  because  we  find  them  so  we  do  nothing. 
This  prayer  meets  us  at  each  point;  it  will  not 
allow  us  to  escape  by  one  pretext  or  the  other.     It 
does  not  treat  the  projects  of  men  for  universal  so- 
cieties, unbounded  pantisocracies,  as  too  large.     It 
overreaches  them   all  with  these  words,  "As  in 
Heaven."     It  opens  to  us  the  vision  of  a  society, 
in  which  angels  and  archangels,  and  the  spirits  of 
the  just  made  perfect,  are  citizens,  and  in  which 
we  too  have  an  inheritance.     It  does  not  look  upon 
any  homely  individual  task  of  self-sacrifice  as  in- 
significant:  "So  upon  earth"   meets   every  such 
case,  and  reminds  us  that  the  lowliest  tasks  beseem 
the  disciples  of  Him  who  "  took  upon  Him  the 
form  of  a  servant,  and  was  found  in   fashion  as  a 
man."     "  Thy  Will  be  done  "  reconciles  the  high 
and  the  mean ;   the  Will  of  Him  who  created  the 
heavens,  and  stretched  them  out ;  the  Will  of  Him 
who  was  born   in  the  manger ;  the   Will  of  that 
Spirit  of  Holiness  in  whom  they  are  eternally  one. 


SERMON  V. 


JFirst  Sunbdi)  in  Cent,  iltnrd)  12,  18i7 


Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread. — Matt.  vi.  11. 

There  are  many  points  of  view  from  which  this 
season  of  Lent  may  be  regarded.  One  of  them  is 
given  us  in  the  beginning  of  the  Gospel  for  to-day. 
The  tempter  said  to  Jesus,  "If  thou  be  the  Son  of 
God,  command  that  these  stones  be  made  bread." 
He  answered,  "It  is  written,  Man  shall  not  live  by 
bread  alone,  but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out 
of  the  mouth  of  God  shall  men  live."  If  these 
last  words  had  declared  that  man  does  not  live  by 
bread,  they  would  have  been  naturally  construed 
to  mean  that  he  has  a  higher,  more  mysterious  life 
than  that  of  his  body;  one  requiring  a  diviner 
nourishment.  But  this  sense,  though  it  may  be 
latent  in  the  answer,  has  not  generally  been  felt  to 
arise  immediately  out  of  it.  ,  That  the  most  per- 
fect man  does,  in  some  sense,  live  by  bread,  was 
shown  by  our  Lord's  hungering.  He  did  not  exalt 
Himself  above  the  conditions  of  creatures  with 
bodies,  dying  bodies ;  those  conditions  He  entered 
into.  It  was  to  His  weakness,  to  His  suffering, 
iliat  the  Tempter  spoke.     And  the  reply  did  not 


GIVE  US  THIS  DAY  OUR  DAILY  BREAD.     55 

move  the  question  to  a  different  ground,  but  met  it 
on  its  own  ground.  Man's  hodij  lives  not  by  bread 
alone,  but  by  the  Word  which  proceedeth  out  of 
the  mouth  of  God.  This  was,  obviously,  the  first 
intention  of  the  language  when  it  was  used  by  Mo- 
ses. The  manna  proved  to  the  Israelites  that  their 
support  came  from  the  Word  of  God.  That  Word 
did  not  sustain  them  without  visible  food;  but  it 
conferred  upon  the  visible  thing  the  power  of  sus- 
taining them.  Take  away  the  life-giving  Word, 
which  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God,  and 
the  little  round  thing  which  lay  upon  the  ground 
would  have  been  useless.  This  lesson  they  were 
to  lay  to  heart ;  the  pot  of  manna  in  the  taberna- 
cle was  to  remind  them  of  it  when  they  Avere  come 
into  the  promised  land,  and  were  eating  bread 
made  by  various  processes  from  the  corn  which 
they  had  themselves  sown  and  reaped.  They  were 
not  to  think  that  this  derived  its  nourishing  power 
less  from  the  Word  of  God  than  the  manna  which 
their  fathers  ate  in  the  wilderness.  They  were  not 
to  suppose  that  this  bread  had  any  virtue  of  its 
own  more  than  the  other.  Its  virtue  lay  in  its  fit- 
ness for  the  creature  whom  God  had  endued  with  a 
life  incomparably  more  wonderful  than  that  of 
the  corn,  wonderful  as  that  is ;  wonderful  as  is  its 
capacity  of  growth,  maturity,  conversion  into  a 
material  quite  unlike  itself;  wonderful  as  is  the 
whole  relation  of  the  vegetable  to  the  animal  sub- 
stance. Rightly  reflected  on,  this  bread  contained 
a  deeper,  more  comprehensive,  revelation  of  God 
than  the  manna.     But,  because  deeper  and  more 


56  SERMON  V. 

comprehensive,  therefore  less  adapted  to  an  infant 
nation,  which  had  been  sensualized  and  debased  by 
animal  and  vegetable  worship,  and  by  the  slavery 
which  must  accompany  it.  Such  a  people  have  to 
begin  at  the  alphabet ;  they  must  be  taught  by  the 
falling  of  food  from  Heaven,  that  they  depend  upon 
an  invisible  Person,  a  sure  Friend  who  cares  for 
them ;  not  upon  the  hard  material  thing  which  will 
not  come  to  them  when  they  ask  for  it :  which  they 
will  be  least  able  to  procure  when  they  treat  it  with 
most  reverence.  But  that  truth  had  need  to  be 
fixed  in  their  hearts,  again  and  again,  in  different 
stages  of  their  history,  by  methods  adapted  to  those 
stages.  In  the  city  as  much  as  in  the  wilderness, 
when  they  had  grown  old  in  a  settled  independence, 
as  much  as  when  they  had  just  escaped  from  the 
flesh-pots  of  Egypt,  in  the, monotony  of  ease,  as 
much  as  when  every  thing  around  them  spoke  of 
famine  and  drought,  they  would  be  assailed  by  ma- 
terialism and  unbelief;  they  would  be  in  danger  of 
losing  all  thought  of  an  unseen  Protector.  There- 
fore the  heavens  would  become  brass,  and  the  earth 
iron,  the  locust  and  palmer-worm  would  eat  up  the 
fruits  of  the  ground,  the  Philistine,  or  the  Assyrian, 
would  lay  it  waste  for  the  same  reason  that  the 
manna  had  fallen  in  the  sight  of  their  fathers ;  to 
show  them  that  they  lived  by  the  Word  which  pro- 
ceeded out  of  the  mouth  of  God,  and  not  by  any 
necessary  fertility  in  the  soil,  or  special  exemption 
from  the  plagues  of  Egypt,  or  any  strength  in  their 
hands  or  in  their  wit.  There  might  come,  in  the 
latter  days  of  the  nation,  even  a  harder  and  more 


GIVE  US  THIS  DAY  OUR  DAILY  BUEAD.     57 

desperate  condition  than  that  which  is  the  result  of 
men's  natural  inclination  to  trust  in  things  seen, 
and  in  the  works  of  their  own  hands.  A  stiff  re- 
ligious formalism,  a  comfortable  conceit  that  they 
were  going  on  with  suitable  decency  through  a 
round  of  appointed  services,  or  were  acquiring 
merit  by  acts  of  voluntary  supererogatory  devotion, 
might  make  the  heaven  brass  and  the  earth  iron  in 
another  sense.  All  real  communication  might  be 
cut  off  between  them ;  the  Lord  of  all  might  be  ex- 
hibited as  a  tyrant  to  be  won  over  by  presents  and 
bribes ;  the  heart  which  should  receive  His  grace 
might  become  utterly  impenetrable.  In  such  a 
period  of  the  history  of  the  Jews,  our  Lord  ap- 
peared among  them  ;^at  such  a  time  the  voice  from 
Heaven  said,  "This  is  my  beloved  Son,"  and  the 
voice  from  hell,  "If  thou  be  the  Son  of  God, 
command  that  these  stones  be  made  bread."  At 
such  a  time.  He  claimed  to  be  the  Son  of  God,  not 
because  He  could  make  stones  bread,  but  because 
He  could  stand  on  the  old  promise,  "Man  shall  not 
live  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every  word  that  pro- 
ceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God."  And  having 
thus  asserted  His  own  filial  dependence  and  filial 
faith,  and  having  claimed  the  privilege  of  depend- 
ence and  faith,  not  for  Himself  but  for  man ;  He, 
who  came  as  the  first-born  of  many  brethren,  could 
say  to  the  band  of  fishermen.  His  disciples,  "  After 
this  manner,  therefore,  pray  ye :  Our  Father — give 
us  this  day  our  daily  bread."  That  childlike  peti- 
tion was  the  fruit  of  His  Baptism,  Fasting,  and 
Temptation. 


58  SERMON  V. 

The  forty  days  then  which  bring  that  Fasting 
and  Temptation  to  our  mind,  are  given  us  especially 
that  we  may  be  taught  how  to  pray  this  prayer. 
Those  who  find  it  quite  easy,  in  all  circumstances 
of  indulgence  and  comfort,  to  believe  that  they  re- 
ceive their  bread  from  God ;  who,  when  it  is  most 
abundant,  ask  him  to  give  it — meaning  what  they 
say — have  not,  perhaps,  any  call  to  self-restraint. 
But  there  are  some  who  know,  in  their  consciences, 
that  they  are  apt  to  mock  God  when  they  speak 
these  solemn  words,  apt  to  take  food  and  every 
other  blessing  as  if  it  were  their  right,  of  which  no 
power  in  heaven  or  earth  except  by  sheer  injustice 
can  deprive  them.  Something  which  shall  tell  them 
of  dependence,  some  secret  reminiscence,  insignifi- 
cant to  others,  that  all  things  are  not  their  own; 
some  hint  that  there  are  a  few  million  creatures  of 
their  flesh  and  blood  who  cannot  call  any  of  these 
things  their  own,  is  needful  for  them.  If  it  comes 
in  the  form  of  punishment  sent  specially  to  them- 
selves, they  cannot  say  it  was  not  wanted;  if  it  is  a 
voice  addressed  generally  to  the  whole  Church,  a 
season  returning  year  by  year,  they  cannot  pretend 
that  there  are  any  satisfactory  reasons  why  they 
should  close  their  ears  to  it.  What  they  ought  to 
desire  is,  that  they  may  keep  the  end  in  sight :  so 
they  will  never  reckon  means,  of  whatever  kind 
they  be,  of  any  value  for  their  own  sakes  ;  they 
will  not  fancy  that  to  abstain  from  food  is  more 
meritorious  in  God's  sight  than  to  eat  it;  if  in  either 
case  equally,  they  are  desiring  to  recollect  that  it 
is  a  good  which  lie  bestoAvs.     Above  all,  they  will 


GIVE  US  THIS  DAY  OUR  DAILY  BREAD.     59 

feel  that,  whatever,  else  Lent  is,  it  is  certainly  a 
time  of  confession,  and  their  great  hope  of  being 
ever  able  to  use  this  prayer  more  faithfully  must  be 
grounded  on  an  examination  of  the  causes  which 
have  made  it  so  unreal  in  times  past.  Let  us  look 
manfully  at  some  of  these  causes  this  afternoon ;  if 
we  study  the  petition,  we  shall  not  be  long  in  dis- 
covering them. 

I.  It  may  seem  strange  that  I  should  put,  first 
of  all,  our  unwillingness  to  acknowlege  God  as  a 
Giver;  our  inclination  to  think  of  Him  rather  as 
an  Exactor.  Such  a  charge  will,  I  know,  sound 
to  some  most  paradoxical.  "What!"  they  will 
say,  "  do  you  affirm  that  people  in  this  day  like 
especially  to  be  reminded  of  the  duties  that  are  re- 
quired of  them,  and  dislike  to  be  reminded  of  the 
gifts  and  mercies  which  they  may  expect  with  or 
without  the  performance  of  those  duties  ?  Is  not 
precisely  the  opposite  error  that  to  which  our  age 
is  prone  ?  Are  we  not  most  restless  and  impatient 
Avhen  we  are  told.  Such  things  you  ought  to  do, — 
such  men  you  ought  to  be  ;  most  eager  to  receive 
the  comfortable  assurance  that  we  may  rest,  for 
that  God's  grace  is  every  thing — man's  energy  no- 
thing?" Those  who  make  this  objection,  show 
that  they  have  considerable  experience,  both  of 
other  men's  infirmities,  and  of  their  own.  That 
a  certain  languor,  not  incompatible  with  much  fe- 
ver, but  one  of  its  symptoms,  is  characteristic  of 
our  time,  I  should  indeed  be  afraid  to  deny.  We 
cannot  feel  it  ourselves  without  being  conscious 
that  it  is  abroad.     That  when  we  are  indisposed  to 


60  SERMON  V. 

strenuous  effort,  we  often  take  refuge  in  tlieorieSj 
religious  or  philosophical,  which  disparage  it,  or 
represent  it  as  needless,  is  also  indisputable.  We 
try  stimulants  first,  then  opiates;  and  each  empi- 
ric, who  would  suggest  a  new  one,  may  reasonably 
speculate  upon  the  failure  of  the  last.  But  where 
did  this  listlessness  begin  ?  what  is  the  root  of  it  ? 
Our  Lord  puts  this  interpretation  of  it  into  the 
mouth  of  one  who  had  exhibited  it,  and  wished  to 
justify  it:  "I  know  thee  that  thou  art  a  hard  man, 
reaping  where  thou  dost  not  sow,  and  gathering 
where  thou  dost  not  strew :  therefore  I  hid  thy 
talent  in  the  earth ;  lo !  there  thou  hast  that  is 
thine."  If  we  can  trust  Him  who  knew  what  was 
in  man,  the  two  accusations  are  not  inconsistent ; 
we  may  be  very  slow  in  listening  to  calls  of  duty, 
and  the  reason  may  be  that  we  regard  Him  who 
calls  us  as  an  Exactor,  not  a  Giver.  I  press  this 
confession  before  all  others,  not  only  because  the 
first  word  of  the  Prayer  suggests  it,  but  because  I 
believe  we,  the  ministers  of  God,  are  more  bound 
to  make  it  than  other  men.  We  have  thought,  it 
seems  to  me,  that  our  chief  business  was  to  per- 
suade and  conjure  and  argue  and  frighten  men  into 
a  notion  and  feeling  of  their  responsibilities  :  where- 
as our  chief  business  is,  assuredly,  to  proclaim  the 
name  of  God;  to  set  that  before  our  fellow-crea- 
tures in  its  fulness  and  reality ;  so  to  convince  them 
of  their  sin ;  so  to  teach  them  how  they  may  be  de- 
livered from  it.  Being  very  eager  to  make  out  a 
case  against  mankind,  comparatively  indifferent 
about  the  assertion  and  vindication  of  the  Divine 


GIVE  US  THIS  DAY  OUR  DAILY  BREAD.  61 

character,  Tve  have  failed  in  one  object  quite  as 
much  as  the  other.  We  have  not  dared  to  speak 
of  God  broadly,  simply,  absolutely,  as  a  Giver,  lest 
we  should  thereby  weaken  His  claim  upon  man's 
obedience ;  whereas  this  is  His  claim  upon  their 
obedience:  in  this  way  He  enforces  His  claim. 
Thus  we  have  begotten  in  men  a  feeling  that  they 
are  obliged  to  do  something  which  they  cannot  do. 
A  struggle  ensues,  passionate,  irregular,  hopeless, 
after  an  unattainable  prize ;  then  bitter  discontent 
and  murmuring  against  Him  who  seems  to  have 
created  us  for  vanity  and  wretchedness. 

See  how  this  consideration  aj0fects  the  petition 
for  daily  bread.  If  we  dared  to  look  upon  God  as 
a  giver  in  the  full,  free,  intelligible,  sense  of  the 
Avords,  we  should,  in  asking  for  bread,  feel  that  we 
were  asking  for  the  power  and  energy  wherewith 
to  work  for  it.  We  should  say  to  ourselves  :  "  This 
is  the  law  under  which  God  has  put  the  universe,  a 
merciful  and  good  law,  which  if  man  is  able  to  evade 
as  he  is  in  some  regions  of  exuberant  fertility,  the 
seeming  privilege  turns  out  to  be  his  curse.  It  is 
desiring  a  stone,  and  not  bread,  to  desire  that 
we  may  have  all  we  want  without  the  sweat  of 
our  brow ;  and  such  a  stone  the  Father  will  not 
give  us.  But  when  we  desire  the  will  to  toil,  and 
the  wisdom  to  toil,  and  the  strength  to  toil,  and 
the  fruit  of  toil,  we  plead  as  men  with  Him  who 
desires  that  we  should  subdue  the  earth  and  reple- 
nish it,  because  He  has  made  us  in  His  image,  and 
would  have  us  share  His  work  and  His  rest.  Then 
we  ask  according  to  His  will  and  He  heareth  us. 
6 


62  SERMON  V. 

Then  does  the  earth  bring  forth  and  bud,  and  God, 
even  our  own  God,  blesses  us.  We  are  not  the 
creatures  of  chance  ;  we  are  not  the  slaves  of  a 
Pharaoh;  we  are  doing  the  blessed  command  of 
Him  who  created  the  ground  and  man  to  inhabit 
it."  How  entirely  then  does  the  life  and  sense  of 
this  passage  depend  upon  those  which  have  gone 
before  it !  If  we  misrepresent  the  Name  of  God, 
and  the  Will  of  God,  how  inevitably  does  this  pe- 
tition for  bread  turn  to  evil  instead  of  good.  If 
we  will  think  of  Him,  not  as  the  Scripture  and  the 
Church  teach  us  to  think  of  Him,  as  the  author  and 
giver  of  all  things,  but  only  as  one  who  demands 
so  much  work  of  us,  and  offers  so  much  pay  in  re- 
turn, we  fold  our  hands  in  indolence  and  despair ; 
we  cannot  love  that  which  he  commands,  nor  desire 
that  which  He  promises.  Let  us  confess,  then, 
this  sin  first,  that  we  have  slandered  His  holy 
name,  not  believing  that  He  gives  to  all  men  libe- 
rally, and  upbraideth  not. 

II.  If  we  think  of  God  as  an  Exactor  and  not  a 
Giver,  exactors  and  not  givers  shall  we  be.  And 
so  the  word  us  acquires  a  very  contracted  signifi- 
cation indeed.  The  prayer  will  express  a  hope 
that  we,  who  are  sufficiently  well  supplied  with  all 
necessaries  and  comforts,  may  never  be  stinted  of 
them ;  it  will  express  a  lazy  half-formed  wish  that 
people,  who  have  none  of  our  comforts  and  little  of 
what  we  call  necessaries,  may  not  quite  starve. 
Think  what  meaning  it  must  have  had  when  it  was 
first  offered  up  by  that  band  in  Jerusalem,  after 
the  day  of  Pentecost,  who  were  of  one  heart  and 


GIVE  US  THIS  DAY  OUR  DAILY  BREAD.  63 

one  soul,  eating  their  bread  with  joy  and  singleness 
of  heart.  They  will  have  understood  it  to  be  in- 
deed a  petition  to  the  Father,  who  had  so  loved 
them  as  to  give  His  only-begotten  Son  for  them, 
and  who  had  filled  them  with  His  own  Spirit,  that 
He  would  give  them  that  which  they  needed  for 
body  and  soul ;  would  give  it  them  under  that  con- 
dition of  w^hich  I  spoke  just  now :  and  under  this 
further  condition,  that  each,  upon  whom  the  Lord 
bestowed  superfluity,  should  hold  himself  a  steward, 
and  distribute  his  bounties.  As  the  first  principle 
which  united  bread  and  work  together  had  been 
proved,  by  a  long  experience,  to  be  a  blessed  one, 
so  the  second  they  will  have  felt  to  be  the  fulfil- 
ment of  Christ's  promise,  that  they  should  be  chil- 
dren of  His  Father  in  heaven ;  that  they  should  be 
gracious  and  merciful  as  He  is.  Without  the  one 
the  Church  would  have  been  a  hive  of  drones ; 
without  the  second  it  would  have  been  a  collection 
of  separate  bees,  each  w^orking  for  itself,  bringing 
in  its  contribution  to  a  common  stock,  but  wanting 
the  sweetness  of  afiection,  sympathy,  subordination. 
Will  it  be  said  that  the  law  of  that  Church  was 
never  intended  to  be  perpetual;  that  even  in  apos- 
tolical history  there  are  few  vestiges  of  it  after  the 
Church  had  difi'used  itself  beyond  a  single  city  or 
province  ?  I  answer  ;  the  accidents  of  that  Jeru- 
salem Church  were  indeed  transitory;  more  tran- 
sitory than  the  fall  of  the  manna  in  the  camp  of 
Israel :  but  the  law  which  those  accidents  made 
known  was  as  permanent  a  law  as  that  which  the 
manna  revealed.     The  sellino-  of  houses  and  lands 


64  SERMON  V. 

■was  only  one  exhibition  of  a  state  of  mind,  an  ex- 
hibition never  enforced,  as  St.  Peter  told  Ananias. 
But  the  principle  implied  in  the  words,  "No  man 
said  that  Avhich  he  had  was  his  own,"  is  the  princi- 
ple of  the  Church,  in  all  ages ;  its  members  stand 
while  they  confess  this  principle,  they  fall  from  her 
communion  when  they  deny  it. 

Property  is  holy,  distinction  of  ranks  is  holy :  so 
speaks  the  Law,  and  the  Church  does  not  deny  the 
assertion,  but  ratifies  it.  Only  she  must  proclaim 
this  other  truth,  or  perish.  Beneath  all  distinc- 
tions of  property  and  of  rank  lie  the  obligations  of 
a  common  Creation,  Redemption,  Humanity;  and 
these  are  not  mere  ultimate  obligations  to  be  con- 
fessed when  the  others  are  fulfilled.  They  are  not 
vague  abstractions,  which  cannot  quite  be  denied, 
but  which  have  no  direct  bearing  upon  our  actual 
daily  existence;  they  are  primary,  eternal  bonds, 
upon  which  all  others  depend;  they  are  not  satis- 
fied by  some  nominal  occasional  act  of  homage ; 
they  demand  the  fealty  and  service  of  a  life ;  all 
our  doings  must  be  witnesses  of  them.  The  Church 
proclaims  tacitly  by  her  existence — she  should  have 
proclaimed  openly  by  her  voice — that  property  and 
rank  are  held  upon  this  tenure ;  that  they  can  stand 
by  no  other.  Alas !  she  has  not  spoken  out  this 
truth  clearly  and  strongly  here  or  any  where.  She 
has  fancied  that  it  was  her  first  work  to  protect 
those  who  could  have  protected  themselves  well 
enough  without  her,  provided  she  had  been  true  to 
her  vocation  of  caring  for  those  whom  the  world 
did  not  care  for,  of  watching  over  them  continually. 


GIVE  US  THIS  DAY  OUR  DAILY  BREAD.  65 

of  fitting  them  to  be  citizens  of  any  society  on 
earth,  by  showing  them  what  is  implied  in  the  hea- 
venly filial  citizenship  into  which  God  has  freely 
adopted  them.  Failing  in  this  duty,  she  has  be- 
come powerless  for  the  one  she  ignominiously  pre- 
ferred. She  can  give  but  feeble  health  to  the  rich 
in  their  hour  of  need,  because  she  ministered  to 
them  with  such  sad  fidelity  in  their  hour  of  triumph 
and  prosperity.  She  can  scarcely  make  her  voice 
heard  against  schemes  for  reducing  all  things  to  a 
common  stock,  for  establishing  a  fellowship  upon  a 
law  of  mutual  selfishness,  because  she  has  not  be- 
lieved that  the  internal  communion,  the  law  of  Love, 
the  polity  of  members  united  in  one  Head,  of  bre- 
thren confessing  a  common  Father,  is  a  real  one 
— has  left  people  to  fancy  that  it  is  only  a  fine 
dream,  a  cruel  mockery,  incapable  of  bringing  any 
tangible  blessings.  If  she  can  yet  avert  such  a 
calamity,  it  must  be  by  calling  upon  all  of  us  her 
members  to  confess  the  insincerity  with  which  we 
have  uttered  these  words,  "  Give  us  our  daily  bread." 
If  we  had  understood  that  we  were  children  of  one 
Father,  and  were  asking  him  to  bless  all  the  parts 
of  His  family,  while  we  were  seeking  blessings  for 
ourselves,  that,  in  fact,  we  could  not  pray  at  all 
without  praying  for  them,  we  should  have  found  the 
answer  in  a  new  sense  of  fellowship  between  all 
classes,  in  the  feeling  that  every  man,  in  every  po- 
sition, has  an  oflSce  and  ministry  which  it  is  his 
privilege  to  exercise  for  those  over  whom  he  is  set; 
in  a  clearer  apprehension  of  the  relationship  be- 
tween the  master  of  a  household  and  his  domestics, 
G* 


GQ  SERMON  V. 

the  landlord  and  his  tenants,  the  farmer  and  his 
labourers,  the  manufacturer  and  those  who  work  at 
the  loom  or  the  mill,  the  tradesman  and  those  who 
serve  in  his  shop ;  between  these  and  then  between 
all  of  them  and  the  outlaying  mass,  which  seems  to 
be  beyond  the  bounds  of  all  ordinary  civil  relation- 
ships, but  which,  as  it  has  the  great  mark  of  human 
relationship,  may  be  adopted  into  these,  or  be  fitted 
to  take  a  part  in  the  establishment  of  new  societies 
elsewhere. 

If  we  meet  continually  in  the  streets  creatures 
of  our  own  flesh  and  blood,  who  have  a  look  of 
hunger  and  misery,  without  being  able  to  determine 
whether  it  is  a  greater  sin  to  withhold  that  which 
may  save  them  from  death,  or  to  give  what  may 
lead  to  the  worst  kind  of  death ;  if  a  thousand  so- 
cial problems,  which  we  once  supposed  were  of  easy 
solution,  present  themselves  in  new  and  embarrass- 
ing aspects,  tempting  us  to  pass  them  by  altogether 
and  then  forcing  upon  us  the  reflection,  that  they 
must  settle  themselves  in  some  way,  whether  we 
forget  them  or  not ;  if  we  hear  masses  of  creatures 
spoken  of  as  if  they  were  the  insects  we  look  at  in 
a  microscope,  and  then  are  suddenly  reminded  by 
some  startling  phenomenon  that  each  one  of  them 
has  a  living  soul;  then,  before  we  become  mad,  or 
escape  into  an  apathy  that  is  worse  than  madness, 
let  us  ask  ourselves  whether  we  have  yet  prayed 
this  child's  prayer  as  we  would  have  a  child  pray 
it,  in  simplicity  and  truth.  And  if  we  are  con- 
scious that  we  have  not,  let  us  confess  the  sin,  and 
see  whether  He  to  whom  Ave  confess  it  does  not 


GIVE  US  THIS  DAY  OUR  DAILY  BREAD.  67 

shed  some  light  Into  our  minds  which  makes  our 
path  clearer — a  light  which  we  may  believe  He  will 
vouchsafe  to  our  brethren  in  this  land,  and  in  all 
lands,  for  their  practical  guidance,  when  their  large 
theories  are  found  to  be  reeds,  upon  which,  if  a 
man  leans,  they  will  go  into  his  hand  and  pierce  it. 
III.  But  the  prayer  is  only  for  this  day.  Hence 
it  is  often  thought  that  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel  is 
adverse  to  foresight.  How  can  the  command, 
"Take  no  thought  for  the  morrow,"  be  reconciled 
with  the  kind  of  anticipation  and  preparation  which 
seem  to  distinguish  the  civilized  man  from  the  hun- 
ter of  the  woods  ?  The  answer  lies  in  our  own  ex- 
perience. Have  we  found  that  anxiety  about  pos- 
sible consequences  increased  the  clearness  of  our 
judgment,  made  us  wiser  and  braver  in  meeting  the 
present,  and  arming  ourselves  for  the  future?  Is 
it  this  kind  of  temper  which  enables  a  man  to  plough 
the  ground,  to  sow  the  seed  in  the  appointed  month, 
to  wait  patiently  for  the  harvest  ?  Is  it  the  temper 
which  would  have  enabled  any  sailor,  any  merchant, 
to  venture  himself  or  his  goods  upon  the  deep? 
We  know  perfectly  well  that  the  most  opposite 
habit  of  mind  to  this,  a  simple  and  hearty  reliance 
upon  a  power  whom  the  ground,  and  the  seasons, 
and  the  winds,  and  the  waves  obey,  could  alone 
have  made  such  acts  and  enterprises  possible. 
Clearness  of  vision,  providence,  discovery,  are  the 
rewards  of  the  calm  and  patient  spirit.  The  cases 
are  rare  indeed  where  they  have  been  given  to  any 
other.  Out  of  that  care  for  the  morrow  which  our 
Lord  denounces,  spring  the  fever  of  speculation, 


68  SERMON  V. 

the  hastening  to  be  rich,  endless  scheming,  con- 
tinual reactions  of  fantastic  hope  and  deep  de- 
pression in  individuals,  of  mad  prosperity  and  in- 
tense suffering  in  nations.  If  we  had  prayed  for 
this  day's  bread,  and  left  the  next  to  itself,  if  we 
had  not  huddled  our  days  together,  not  allotting  to 
each  its  appointed  task,  but  ever  deferring  that  to 
the  future,  and  drawing  upon  the  future  for  its  own 
troubles  which  must  be  met  when  they  come  whether 
we  have  anticipated  them  or  not,  we  should  have 
found  a  simplicity  and  honesty  in  our  lives,  a  ca- 
pacity for  work,  an  enjoyment  in  it,  to  which  we 
are  now,  for  the  most  part,  strangers.  Here,  I  be- 
lieve, we  shall  all  find  abundant  matter  for  confes- 
sion, if  we  look  faithfully  into  our  lives.  This  part 
of  the  prayer  too  has  been  unfaithfully  repeated ; 
we  have  been  wearying  ourselves  in  thoughts  of 
what  would  be,  because  we  have  no  confidence  in 
Him  who  is. 

IV.  But  it  is  our  daily  bread  we  ask  for,  tov  ap- 
tov  Tjfjuov  tov  eTiiovdiov.  This  word  iTiiovaiov  gave  rise 
to  one  of  the  controversies  between  Abelard  and 
Bernard  in  the  12th  century.  The  former,  follow- 
ing a  hint  of  Jerome,  adopted  the  translation  panem 
supersuhstantialem,  and  taught  Heloise  and  the 
nuns  in  her  convent  to  use  it  in  repeating  the 
prayer.  It  appears  that  the  practice  was  not  a 
new  one  there ;  at  all  events,  Bernard  had  no  right 
to  accuse  his  opponent  of  wilfully  perverting  Scrip- 
ture, when  he  was  following  the  guidance  of  the 
most  approved  Latin  Father.  We  shall  all  pro- 
bably agree  that  he  was  right  in  objecting  to  a 


GIVE  US  THIS  DAY  OUR  DAILY  BREAD.     69 

phrase  which,   even  if  it   had   more   philological 
plausibility  than  really  belongs  to  it,*  would  be 
entirely  out  of  harmony  with  the  tone  and  spirit  of 
the  prayer.     It  is  less  easy  to  say  what  exact  word 
we  should  adopt;  we  have  no  analogy  to  help  us, 
for  the  word  does  not  exist  in  any  classical  author. 
The  balance  of  evidence  seems  decidedly  in  favour 
of  those  who  derive  the  word  as  Jerome  did,  but 
take  it  to  mean  "  bread  for  subsistence."   Our  trans- 
lators followed  a  different  course,  but  they  arrived 
nearly  at  the  same  result.     Bread  for  subsistence 
defines  accurately  what  we  intend  by  daily  bread, 
when  we  intend  any  thing.     We  ask  for  bread  to 
sustain  us,  bread  that  shall  be  enough  for  our  needs. 
What  is  enough  we  happily  are  not  called  to  fix ; 
the  act  of  prayer  throws  the  decision  of  that  point 
upon  a  wiser  judge.     No  one,  therefore,  could  infer 
from  the  use  of  this  expression  that  a  rigid  sump- 
tuary law  is  involved  in  the  petition ;  that  one  has, 
of  course,  the  same  needs  as  another.     The  Bible 
admits  the  distinction  of  rich  and  poor;  in  com- 
manding hospitality,  it  assumes  that  there  are  some 
who  have  the  means  of  exercising  it,  and  others 
towards  whom  it  may  be  exercised.     But  the  words 
are  not  the  less  cutting  because  they  do  not  reduce 
all  expenditure  to   a  level.     They  may  dilate  to 
take  in  a  great  variety  of  cases,  but  they  can  never 
lose  their  proper  original  signification.     Bread  for 
subsistence  will  not,  under  any  circumstances,  be 
bread  for  mere  display,  for  waste,  for  rivalry.     The 

*  It  confounds  «t;  with  'vtji^. 


70  SERMON  V. 

prayer  asserts  a  broad,  palpable,  everlasting  dis- 
tinction between  the  different  reasons  for  seeking 
wealth,  the  different  ways  of  using  it ;  though  it 
leaves  every  man's  conscience  to  determine  in  the 
sight  of  God  which  reasons  govern  his  acts,  which 
ways  he  is  taking.     Honestly  offered  up,  therefore, 
it  will,  I  conceive,  make  us  very  uneasy  in  that 
kind  of  ostentation  which  men  in  each  class  of  so- 
ciety are  apt  to  affect  for  the  purpose  of  not  being 
distanced  by  those  of  the  same  grade,  and  that  they 
may  assert  their  right  to  a  higher.     Moralists,  sa- 
tirists, divines,  have  long  been  using  their  different 
weapons  against  this  folly  apparently  with  little 
success.     It  is  now  felt  to  be  far  too  serious  for  the 
name  "folly."      Competition  is  denounced  by  the 
working  and  suffering  classes  of  our  land,  as  their 
deadly  enemy;  they  ask  for  a  new  organization  of 
society  to  extirpate  it.     But  a  mightier  hand  than 
ours  is  needed  to  deal  with  a  disease  which  has 
penetrated  so  deeply,  which  has  so  nearly  reached 
our  vitals.     What  we  can  do  is  to  tell  men  that  this 
hand  is  stretched  out,  that  any  secret  corruption 
which  has  been  cherished  in  the  heart  of  indivi- 
duals, or  in  the  heart  of  society,  will  be  brought 
into  the  clear  light ;  that  national  judgments  will 
purge  away  those  of  which  the  removal  is  not  first 
sought  by  national  repentance.     What  we  can  do 
is  to  say.  He  who  sends  these  judgments  is  willing 
to  give  that  repentance.     He  invites  us  now  at 
this  time  to  acknowledge  the  sins  that  we  know,  to 
ask  Him  to  search  our  hearts,  and  discover  those 
which  we  know  not.     He  bids  us  believe  that  the 


FORGIVE  US  OUR  DEBTS,  ETC.  71 

most  inveterate  cancer  as  in  ourselves,  so  in  the 
body  politic,  may  be  taken  from  us  by  His  knife, 
if  we  will  submit  to  it.  He  exhorts  us  not  to  wait 
till  the  dark  and  evil  day  actually  comes  upon  us, 
till  the  house  is  left  desolate  of  His  presence,  and 
stript  of  every  good  gift  which  we  have  received 
through  it.  He  calls  upon  us  this  day  to  turn  to 
Him  with  thanksgivings,  as  to  the  great  Giver  of  all 
blessings,  with  confessions  as  to  the  Father  whom 
we  have  grieved  by  disbelieving  in  His  love,  and 
not  showing  it  forth  to  our  brethren ;  with  prayer 
that  He  will  give  us  and  them  all  we  need,  and 
most  of  all,  the  heart  to  receive  it  from  Him  as  His 
stewards,  for  the  good  of  those  who  are  dear  in 
His  sight. 


SERMON  VI. 


Seconb  Sunban  in  Cent,  ilXarrl)  19, 184S. 


Forgive  us  our  Debts  as  we  forgive  our  debtors. — Matt.  vi.  12. 

We  should  be  sorry,  I  think,  to  lose  the  word 
"Trespasses,"  which  we  use  in  our  ordinary  repe- 
tition of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  which  is  translated, 
no  doubt,  from  the  Avord  ajttap-ftaj  in  St.  Luke.  Yet 
St.  Matthew's  expression  presents  a  more  distinct 
image  to  the  mind;  it  interprets  itself  more  easily. 


72  SERMON    VI. 

Therefore  I  have  chosen  it  this  afternoon,  not  wish- 
ing you  to  consider  it  alone,  but  believing  that  it  may 
help  us  to  a  clearer  apprehension  of  a  word  which  for 
many,  at  least,  has  lost  its  brightness  through  con- 
tinual attrition.  The  idea  which  the  petition  embo- 
dies results,  I  suspect,  from  the  union  of  that 
which  is  peculiar  in  each  of  these  forms.  We  find 
it  so  generally,  when  we  take  the  pains  to  examine 
different  expressions  evidently  answering  to  each 
other,  or  different  reports  of  the  same  transaction 
in  the  Gospels.  From  the  comparison  of  them 
there  proceeds  a  fuller  and  more  profound  mean- 
ing than  we  could  have  obtained  from  either  sepa- 
rately. What  is  called  the  study  of  parallel  pas- 
sages, may  in  this  way  be  really  profitable ;  it  is  often 
made  into  a  very  childish  exercise,  one  which  in- 
volves no  reflection ;  sacred  words  being  turned  into 
an  irreverent  game;  all  sense  of  their  unity  and 
relation  being  lost  in  the  eagerness  to  hunt  out  the 
precise  places  in  which  they  occur,  or  their  most 
superficial  and  insignificant  resemblances. 

That  there  is  something  in  the  word  ''debts," 
which  we  are  bound  to  keep  in  mind  when  we  con- 
sider this  prayer  is  evident  from  the  use  of  the  cog- 
nate verb  by  St.  Luke,  in  the  other  clause  of  the 
sentence.  "  Forgive  us  our  trespasses,  for  we  also 
forgive  every  one  that  is  indebted  to  us."  It  is 
evident  also  from  the  word  aiPn,  send  away,  or  "re- 
mit," which  is  common  to  both  Evangelists.  Every 
one  feels  the  appropriateness  of  such  an  expression 
to  a  creditor's  release.  We  have  no  need  to  go 
beyond  the  very  simplest  notion  of  such  a  release ; 


FoUGiVE  US  orn  debts,  etc.  YS 

vc  are  not  bound  to  think  of  a  deliverance  from 
a  prison,  or  from  any  infliction  consequent  upon 
tlie  failure  in  the  fulfilment  of  an  obligation.  Dis- 
charge from  the  debt  itself  is  that  which  the  verb 
suggests.  Perhaps  we  may  find  that  this  sense 
gains,  instead  of  losing  strength,  when  we  apply  it 
to  trespasses, — to  sins.  Still  we  should  first  fix 
our  minds  upon  that  which  stands  in  the  most  ob- 
vious connexion  with  it. 

I.  Our  Lord  then  bids  us  pray,  Remit,  or  send 
away,  or  discharge,  these  debts  or  obligations  of  ours. 
Whatever  they  are.  He  bids  us  ask  Him  for  this  ;  this 
and  nothing  less.  He  who  tells  us  to  pray,  Our 
Father,  says  also,  Ask  for  this  full  remission.  He 
must  mean  that  it  is  such  a  request  as  a  child  should 
make  of  a  father,  and  a  father  could  grant  to  his 
child.  He  who  teaches  us  to  say,  "  Hallowed  be 
thy  Name,"  bids  us  ask  for  this  remission.  He 
must  mean  that  God's  Name  is  hallowed  in  our 
making  the  petition,  and  in  His  hearing  it.  He 
Avho  taught  us  to  say  "Thy  Kingdom  come,"  bids 
us  say,  Grant  us  this  remission.  He  must  mean 
that  it  is  consistent  with  His  Royalty,  and  part  of 
it,  and  a  proof  of  it  that  we  should  desire  and  re- 
ceive this  release.  He  who  desired  us  to  pray, 
"Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven," 
tells  us  also  to  ask  for  this  sending  away  of  debts. 
He  must  mean  that  this  is  the  Will  which  is  obeyed 
in  heaven,  and  that  so,  we  are  obeying  it  on  earth. 
He  who  taught  us  to  look  up  to  God  as  a  Giver, 
not  as  an  Exactor,  and  to  pray  for  the  bread  which 
is  needful  for  us,  further  commands  us  to  ask  for 
7 


74  SERMON  VI. 

this  freedom.  He  must  mean  that  rain  and  fruit- 
ful seasons  are  not  more  a  sign  to  men  of  ^Yhat  He 
is  than  remission ;  that  one  is  as  much  an  utterance 
of  His  disposition  and  purpose  as  the  other ;  that 
one  is  at  least  as  much  needed  by  His  creatures  as 
the  other.  He  who  came  down  to  declare  the 
Name,  the  Kingdom,  the  Will  of  God,  and  to  bring 
all  good  gifts  to  men,  must  have  wished  us  to  un- 
derstand Him  thus ;  or  He  could  not  have  trained 
us  to  the  use  of  a  word  so  precise,  and  yet  so  un- 
limited. 

II.  The  objects  of  this  prayer  must  be  those 
who  were  united  with  us,  when  we  said,  "Our 
Father,"  and,  "Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread." 
If  there  were  any  for  whom  we  did  not  pray  when 
wo  said  those  words,  they  will  be  excluded  from 
these.  If  there  are  any  human  beings  whose  na- 
ture we  suppose  Christ  did  not  take,  any  for  whom 
we  suppose  the  Father  does  not  care,  for  those  we 
do  not  ask  the  remission  of  trespasses.  Where 
such  limitations  begin,  where  they  must  end,  I  have 
had  occasion  to  consider  while  I  have  been  com- 
menting on  the  former  clauses  of  the  prayer.  They 
begin  in  a  feeling  that  we  must,  for  our  own  safety, 
establish  certain  boundaries  beyond  which  the  di- 
vine compassion  cannot  go ;  they  proceed  to  the  in- 
vention of  securities  and  exclusions  which  compass 
their  end  so  little,  that  their  places  must  be  pre- 
sently supplied  by  others ;  they  end  in  the  dis- 
covery that  we  have  destroyed  the  ground  under 
our  own  feet,  while  we  have  been  making  it  untena- 
ble for  our  fcllow-mcn.     I  need   not  repeat  the 


FORGIVE  U3  OUR  DEBTS,  ETC.  75 

evidence,  but  I  must  repeat  the  -warning.  When 
the  publican  prayed,  "  God  be  merciful  to  me  a 
sinner,"  he  chiimed  for  himself  a  place  among  the 
mass  of  sinners;  he  would  not  say,  like  the  Phari- 
see, I  am  not  as  other  men  are.  If  in  literal  imi- 
tation of  his  example,  in  real  contempt  of  it,  any 
one  of  us  chooses  to  say,  Forgive  me  my  debts, 
rather  than.  Forgive  us  our  debts ;  he  will  not  go 
down  to  his  house  justified;  he  will  feel  that  the 
petition  has  not  been  granted. 

III.  And  yet  when  we  come  to  consider  what 
these  debts  are  which  we  crave  should  be  put  away, 
it  does  not  seem  wonderful  that  we  should  choose 
individualizing  language,  rather  than  that  which  is 
more  general.  For  each  man  says  within  himself, 
Are  not  these  debts  mine  in  the  strictest  sense? 
Are  they  not  obligations  which  I  have  contracted, 
and  which  /  have  violated  1  Upon  me  lies  a  burden 
which  I  cannot  shift  upon  any  other  human  crea- 
ture— the  burden  of  duties  unfulfilled,  words  un- 
spoken, or  spoken  violently  and  untruly;  of  holy 
relationships  neglected ;  of  days  wasted  for  ever ; 
of  evil  thoughts  once  cherished,  which  are  ever  ap- 
pearing as  fresh  as  when  they  were  first  admitted 
into  the  heart;  of  talents  cast  away;  of  affections 
in  myself,  or  in  others,  trifled  with;  of  light  within 
turned  to  darkness.  So  speaks  the  conscience ;  so 
speaks  or  has  spoken  the  conscience  of  each  man. 
In  some  it  may  be  a  feeble  voice,  soon  lost  in  the 
noises  of  the  outward  world,  or  silenced  by  violent 
efforts,  or  choked  by  the  senses,  or  bribed  by  the 
fancy.     In  others,  it  is  loud  and  stormy  to-day ; 


76  SERMON  VI. 

then  comes  a  reaction  of  fierce  merriment  or  a  tem- 
porary lull  which  will  be  followed  again  by  new 
blasts  of  passion.  In  some  it  is  a  low  but  per- 
petually sounding  knell,  witnessing  of  a  death  begun 
and  going  on  in  themselves ;  of  the  past  accursed, 
the  present  withered,  the  future  vaguely  terrible. 
But  each  one  who  has  ever  known  what  conscience 
is,  feels  that  it  is  upon  his  own  very  self  these  ob- 
ligations lie.  They  may  sometimes  present  them- 
selves to  him  in  dark  outward  visions,  they  may  be 
associated  inseparably  with  certain  places  and  per- 
sons. But  they  sit  like  nightmares  upon  him ;  they 
stop  his  breathing;  they  hold  him  chained.  How 
often  would  he  persuade  himself  that  they  are  only 
phantoms !  How  often  would  he  task  his  under- 
standing to  prove  that  he  has  himself  brought  them 
thither  by  some  strange  conjuring !  Why  cannot 
he  cast  them  aside  as  dreams  of  the  night?  Are 
they  any  thing  more  ?  They  come  back  with  fear- 
ful distinctness;  the  very  act  of  which  conscience 
testifies,  every  circumstance,  look,  tone,  clearly  re- 
corded; it  is  no  dream  of  the  night.  The  voice,  be 
it  from  Heaven  or  Hell,  is  a  real  one,  which  says, 
"  It  is  done,  and  cannot  be  undone,"  and,  "  Thou  art 
the  man."  What  signifies  it  that  years  have  passed 
away?  The  act  is  gone,  but  thou  art  still  the  same. 
The  act  is  gone  into  Eternity,  and  there  it  will  meet 
thee. 

These  are  the  debts ;  are  they  to  ourselves  ? 
Often  it  seems  so.  We  have  suffered  by  them  more 
than  all  others — our  bodies  and  souls.  But  if  they 
are  to  ourselves,  we  cannot   release  thom.      The 


FORGIVE  US  OUR  DEBT3,  ETC.  77 

more  wc  try,  tlic  more  hopeless! j  the  coll  is  twisted 
round  us.  Are  they  to  our  fellows?  Often  we 
think  so.  We  were  bound  to  them  by  sacred  ties 
which  were  forgotten ;  the  friend  repulsed,  because 
we  did  not  understand  him,  or  his  opinions  seemed 
dangerous,  or  because  we  took  a  cry  of  agony  for 
a  mocking  laugh;  the  child  petted  and  fondled  into 
sin,  or  driven  into  it  by  roughness  and  what  we  call 
parental  authority ;  those  who  looked  to  be  raised 
and  purified  by  us,  degraded  through  our  w^eak  and 
grovelling  ways ;  those  who  would  have  entered  into 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  hindered,  because  we  cared 
not  that  they  should  be  wiser  and  better  than  oui-- 
selves.  But  if  our  debts  are  to  our  fellow-creatures, 
they  cannot  discharge  them.  If  we  could  hear 
each  one  distinctly  saying  out  of  the  grave  or  from 
Heaven,  "I  forgive,"  though  the  words  might  be 
unspeakably  delightful,  we  feel  they  would  not  pene- 
trate deep  enough,  they  would  not  set  us  free  from 
that  which  has  seemed  to  become  a  part  of  our  own 
being. 

Are  they  debts  to  God  ?  The  first  vague  cor  - 
sciousness  of  such  a  belief,  how  terrible  it  is!  All 
the  former  aspects  of  the  debt  seem  mild  to  this 
one;  yet  all  were  surely  prophetical  of  this  one. 
That  sense  of  permanence  of  Eternity  being  bound 
up  with  our  acts  and  the  results  of  them,  what  was 
this  but  a  witness  that  they  had  a  relation  to  God 
himself?  He  surely  was  speaking  that  voice  which 
we  thought  came  from  ourselves,  and  which  was 
echoed  by  every  thing  and  every  person  in  the  world 
around.     Yes,  .Dchts^  nre  Tresspasses :  we  have  not 


78  SERMON  VI. 

only  forfeited  an  obligation,  but  committed  a  sin ; 
we  have  broken  a  law  wliich  was  not  formed  on 
earth,  and  cannot  be  repealed  on  earth. 

But  at  this  point  of  despair  hope  begins.  It  is 
sin;  sin  against  God.  These  very  feelings  Ave  are 
groaning  under  are  sinful ;  this  sense  of  evil  is  evil. 
For  has  it  not  brought  death  into  the  soul?  Is 
not  this  torpor,  this  incapacity  for  action,  feeling, 
loving,  Death  ?  Assuredly  it  is.  And  He  willeth 
not  the  death  of  a  sinner.  lie  cannot  be  pleased 
that  I  should  continue  in  a  state  of  sin.  He  is  not 
pleased  with  it.  Then  come  dim  recollections  of 
words  heard  in  the  nursery,  of  doctrines  which  had 
been  reduced  into  mere  phrases  and  stored  away 
in  the  memory  as  lumber,  or  more  courageously 
cast  aside  as  absurd  contradictions  of  human  ex- 
perience and  ordinary  logic ;  doctrines  which  had 
perhaps  been  associated  with  the  remembrance  of 
some  hard,  comfortless  teacher,  who  first  imparted 
them  to  us  in  traditional  shapes  and  moulds,  or  who 
mixed  them  with  views  of  the  divine  character  from 
which  the  conscience  and  reason  revolted;  doc- 
trines, however,  which  do  not  sound  now  as  if  they 
were  unsuited  to  our  necessities  or  unworthy  of  One 
who  cares  for  His  creatures;  the  doctrine  of  recon- 
ciliation, of  a  Father  who  so  loved  the  World  as  to 
give  His  only-begotten  Son  for  it;  of  a  Son  who 
came  down  from  heaven  not  to  do  his  own  Will, 
but  the  Will  of  Him  who  sent  him ;  who  did  that 
Will  by  laying  down  his  life  for  the  sheep ;  who  was 
manifested  to  take  away  sin,  and  in  whom  was  no 
sill :  by  faith  in  whom  a.  man  may  rise  out  of  him- 


FORGIVE  US  OUR  DEBTS,  ETC.  79 

self,  cast  away  the  slougli  of  death,  and  become  a 
new  and  righteous  creature.  Such  words,  however 
imperfectly  understood,  yet  carry  in  them  an  ama- 
zing power  for  one  who  has  felt  his  debts  and  known 
them  to  be  sins.  But  they  acquire  a  newer  and  a 
fuller  meaning  for  him  when  he  finds  that  what 
seemed  to  him  an  entirely  isolated  experience  is 
that  of  numbers  of  his  fellow  men ;  when  he  hears 
of  publicans  and  harlots  who,  through  the  same 
storm,  have  sought  and  found  the  same  haven. 
Then  lie  learns  to  say,  and  not  to  say  in  vain, 
"Forgive  us  our  Trespasses." 

IV.  There  perhaps  he  stops;  the  words  which 
follow  are  either  forgotten  or  they  give  him  no  pre- 
sent anxiety.  In  the  spring-tide  of  wonder  and  en- 
joyment, at  the  discovery  that  there  is  a  communi- 
cation between  Earth  and  Heaven,  and  that  the 
Angels  of  Heaven  and  the  God  of  Heaven  rejoice 
over  every  sinner  that  repenteth,  it  does  not  strike 
him  that  there  is  the  least  difficulty  in  remitting  to 
other  men  any  debts  that  may  have  incurred  to 
him.  But  the  first  fervour  of  these  convictions 
dies  away.  He  seeks  to  keep  them  alive  by  asso- 
ciation with  those  who  are  or  have  been  sharers  in 
them.  By  mutual  encouragement,  that  which  is 
feeble  and  flagging  in  each  may  be  invigorated. 
Every  one  has  realized  something  which  another 
might  be  better  for  knowing;  the  barter  and  inter- 
change of  thought  will  make  all  richer.  It  should 
be  so  certainly;  but  those  who  make  the  experiment 
often  suspect  that  the  reverse  is  true.  While  they 
are  discoursing  of  that  which  is  passing  within,  it 


80  SERMON  VI. 

seems  to  be  ■wltliin  no  longer.  In  the  commerce  of 
feelings,  notes  and  bills  which  there  is  nothing  to 
meet  soon  circulate  rapidly  from  hand  to  hand. 
And  then  the  latter  words  of  the  prayer  suddenly 
assume  a  disagreeable  significance.  "Forgive  as 
we  forgive:"  Surely  here  is  a  condition  appended 
to  that  which  we  thought  absolutely  free !  Does 
it  mean  that  our  forgiveness  is  the  cause  of  God's 
forgiveness — that  He  expects  so  much  of  us  be- 
fore He  dispenses  to  us  out  of  His  infinite  trea- 
sures? Or  does  it  mean  that  our  forgiveness  is 
the  measure  of  His ;  that  the  acts  of  us  fallible 
creatures  determine  the  kind  and  degree  of  the 
Divine  Mercy  ?  Surely  if  this  be  so,  the  Gospel 
cannot  be  large  and  infinite.  Forgiving  is  not  forth- 
giving,  as  we  have  been  used  to  think ;  a  narrow 
and  clumsy  derivation  must  take  the  place  of  this ; 
it  must  import  the  giving  for  an  equivalent.  Ac- 
cordingly a  great  part  of  men,  even  of  religious 
men,  are  content  to  sit  down  without  determining 
what  the  words  which  they  repeat  so  often  actually 
signify.  They  cannot  mean  that,  therefore  it  is 
better  to  suppose  that  they  have  no  distinct  mean- 
ing at  all.  "  Of  course,"  thinks  the  Christian  who 
is  trying  hard  to  be  at  peace  with  himself,  "in  a 
sense,  I  do  forgive  every  one  who  is  indebted  to 
me.  I  should  not  be  deserving  of  the  goodness  I 
receive  if  I  did  not ;  and  if  I  come  short,  I  ask  to 
be  forgiven:  is  not  that  the  very  use  of  prayer?" 

There  are,  I  am  sure,  thousands  and  tens  of 
thousands  who  repeat  this  petition  in  spirit  and 
truth,  and  upon  whom  it  brings  down  blessings  un- 


FORGIVE  US  OUR  DEBTS,  ETC.  81 

speakable,  though  they  could  not  express  to  others 
what  they  mean  by  this  clause,  and  though  their 
own  minds  are  probably  far  from  clear  about  it. 
Prayer  seeks  that  which  lies  below  all  words;  it 
aims  at  the  light  whereof  that  which  shines  in  our 
understandings  is  but  the  dim  reflection.  From 
those  who  pray  as  children  one  desires  only  to 
learn;  their  lives  are  better  and  more  beautiful 
commentaries  upon  their  prayers  than  any  the 
schools  can  furnish.  But  it  is  altogether  different 
with  those  who  try  to  explain  away  words  upon 
which  our  Lord  dwells  with  special  carefulness;  those 
words  to  which  he  drew  his  disciples'  attention,  as 
if  they  contained  the  spirit  and  essence  of  the  whole 
form.  "If  ye  forgive  not  men  their  trespasses, 
neither  will  your  Heavenly  Father  forgive  you 
your  trespasses  " — this  is  His  own  express  language, 
which  He  illustrates  again  and  again  in  His  other 
discourses,  always  strengthening  not  diminishing 
its  awfulness;  making  in  one  case  the  significant 
addition,  "if  jefrom  your  hearts  forgive  not  every 
one  his  brother  their  trespasses."  It  will  not  do 
surely  to  make  light  of  such  solemn  oracles,  or  re- 
duce them  into  nullities,  because  they  do  not  accord 
with  a  notion  we  have  formed  about  the  freeness  of 
Christ's  Gospel.  But  as  little  ought  we  to  part 
with  our  belief  in  that  freeness  or  with  any  deep 
conviction  which  has  been  given  us,  because  some- 
thing which  we  have  not  yet  understood  seems 
to  contradict  it.  We  need,  for  our  practical  life, 
that  the  apparently  inconsistent  principles  should 
be  reconciled;   and  if  we  are  lioncst  with  ourselves 


82  '        SERMON  VI. 

we  shall  not  be  long  in  discovering  tlie  reconcilia- 
tion. 

How  is  it  that  persons  who  have  had  that  lively 
sense  of  mercy  and  forgiveness  to  which  I  referred 
are  not  able  to  retain  it  ?  They  know  in  their  con- 
sciences that  they  do  not ;  they  continually  confess 
it;  they  are  sure  that  they  ought  to  retain  it,  but 
it  will  not  stay.  The  feeling  of  a  debt  grows  up 
in  the  mind  again,  after  they  supposed  it  was  can- 
celled ;  they  refer  to  the  evidence  upon  which  they 
rested  their  confidence ;  it  is  as  satisfactory  as  ever*; 
they  assure  themselves  that  all  must  be  right,  and 
yet  their  hearts  say  there  is  much  wrong.  Then 
they  resort  to  theological  distinctions  and  formulas ; 
this  sense  of  debt  and  sin  is  very  tormenting,  no 
doubt,  but  it  is  inevitable ;  it  must  stay  with  us  while 
we  are  in  this  bad  world.  Perhaps  so ;  but  must 
it  be  ever  multiplying,  nay,  producing  fresh  sin  ? 
Must  the  consciousness  of  it  make  me  sour  to  others ; 
often  make  me  false  in  dealing  with  myself?  Will 
theological  terms  and  distinctions,  or  the  recollec- 
tion of  bygone  experiences,  or  a  general  apprehen- 
sion that  God  is  at  peace  with  us,  make  ill  temper 
gracious,  or  self-deception  truth  ?  Must  there  not 
be  some  other  more  excellent  way  than  this  of 
bringing  the  facts  of  our  own  lives  into  coincidence 
with  the  truths  of  the  Bible  ?  One  would  think 
that  the  most  obvious,  the  most  excellent  way  was 
to  study  our  Lord's  own  interpretation  of  the  case. 
He  says  that  when  a  servant  who  had  been  pardoned 
the  debt  of  ten  thousand  talents  went  out  of  his 
lord's  presence,  he  found  a  fellow-servant  who  ov.cd 


FORGIVE  US  OUR  DEBTS,  ETC.  83 

hiin  a  liundrecl  pence,  and  that  lie  took  liim  bj  the 
throat,  saying,  Pay  me  that  thou  owest,  and  woukl 
not  listen  to  his  cry,  "Have  patience  with  me." 
This,  he  says,  was  the  cause  that  his  own  debt  came 
back  to  him  heavier  and  more  hopeless  than  ever. 
Is  there  not  a  clear  light  thrown  on  the  dark  pas- 
sages of  our  lives  by  this  parable?  Only  think 
how  we  are  wont  to  speak  of  the  obligations  which 
other  men  are  under  to  us,  of  the  debts  they  have 
incurred  to  us,  of  the  demands  which  we  have  a 
right  to  make  upon  them.  Only  think  how  exactly 
our  Lord's  language  represents  our  feelings,  how 
it  is  uttered  in  all  our  daily  actions.  "  Pay  me 
that  thou  owest,  servant,  child,  poor  dependent, 
friend,  wife,  brother:"  is  not  that  the  first  natural 
thought  of  our  hearts  ?  Do  we  not  encourage  it, 
justify  it  to  ourselves  and  others  ?  have  wc  not  a 
host  of  religious  excuses  for  tolerating  it  till  it  be- 
comes the  habit  of  our  souls  ?  There  is  abundance 
of  good-natured  charity  afloat  in  the  Avorld,  charity 
fur  all  sorts  of  people,  for  all  forms  of  distress. 
But  this  is  the  ornamental  part  of  our  existence, 
the  capital  or  fret-work  of  the  building.  The  sub- 
stantial part,  the  pillars  of  it,  we  seem  to  think  are 
our  rigJds  ;  rights  to  position,  property,  rank,  the 
homage  of  others,  their  gratitude.  If  these  are 
withheld — the  hundred  pence  which  each  man  has 
a  claim  upon  from  his  fellow — with  what  indigna- 
tion do  we  repulse  the  claims  which  we  had  acknow- 
ledged that  mercy  and  charity  have  upon  us  ? 

Now,  brethren,  if  this  be  so,  is  it  very  wonderful 
that  the  sense  of  divine  forgiveness,  the  apprchen- 


84  SERMON  VI. 

sion  of  perfect  unclouded  mercy,  should  not  be  very 
clear  and  strong  in  our  minds  ? 

It  is  surely  the  most  fantastic  of  all  dreams,  that 
a  man  can  cut  his  being  into  two  portions,  call  one 
of  them  religious  and  the  other  mundane,  and  ad- 
minister them  on  directly  opposite  principles.  One 
or  other  must  come  to  naught.  If  we  believe  that 
the  world  is  governed  by  a  forgiving  Being,  His 
forgiveness  must  be  recognised  as  the  Law  of  the 
Universe;  the  Law  of  our  being.  If  we  believe 
that  Individual  Right  is  the  great  principle  we  are 
to  assert  in  all  common  transactions,  that  principle 
will  be  carried  to  the  highest  ground  of  all,  and  so 
far  as  we  acknowledge  a  Divine  Being  at  all,  we 
shall  regard  Him  as  one  like  ourselves ;  we  shall 
feel  that  His  main  desire  is  to  assert  His  rights 
over  us.  I  say,  so  far  as  ive  acknoivhdge  a  Divine 
Being  at  all;  for  I  cannot  help  perceiving  that 
Atheism  is  the  natural,  almost  the  necessary  refuge 
from  such  a  notion  of  the  Lord  of  all  as  this.  The 
naked  contemplation  of  one  who  has  no  will  but 
self-will  is  so  intolerable,  that  the  conscience  which 
remains  in  human  beings,  in  spite  of  all  their 
theories,  shrinks  back  in  horror  from  the  belief  that 
such  a  one  can  be  he  to  whom  the  name  of  God, 
tlie  good,  was  once  ascribed.  Yet  what  avails  the 
denial?  If  self-will  do  govern  the  world,  if  we 
confess  it  to  be  our  lord,  we  may  or  may  not  at- 
tribute to  it  personality ;  but  it  does,  all  the  same, 
hold  us  in  its  iron  bonds ;  Ave  are  in  prison,  the 
evil  spirit  is  our  jailer,  and  we  cannot  come  out  till 
we  have  paid  the  uttermost  farthing. 


FORGIVE  US  OUR  DEBTS,  ETC.  85 

Brethren,  it  is  this  which  makes  the  considera- 
tion of  our  times  so  profoundly  awful.  We  cannot 
avoid  the  conviction  that  the  maxims  upon  which 
we  have  been  acting  will  come  forth  into  full  dis- 
play ;  that  they  will  be  thrown  back  upon  ourselves  ; 
that  the  rights  we  have  asserted  against  our  fellow- 
men  will  be  asserted  by  them  against  us.  We  have 
had  and  we  have  warnings  enough  of  this  catas- 
trophe ;  let  us  hope  that  they  have  not  been  wholly 
lost  upon  us.  Even  yet  the  dark  image  of  mere 
selfish  power,  in  one  or  in  a  multitude,  is  not  re- 
vealed ;  it  struggles  strangely,  wonderfully  in  the 
minds  of  those  who  seem  most  ready  to  fall  down 
and  worship  it  with  the  belief  of  a  Love  which  must 
rule  at  last,  which  we  are  permitted  to  obey  now. 
Oh  !  if  we  might  interpret  to  any  that  strange  con- 
flict of  two  opposing  principles — two  Kingdoms — 
in  the  womb  of  humanity !  Oh  !  that  some  voice 
might  be  heard  declaring  clearly  and  mightily, 
"  The  elder  shall  serve  the  younger.  He  who  won 
the  battle  in  the  wilderness,  proved  that  His  Father 
and  not  Satan,  love  and  not  self,  is  the  King  of 
kings,  and  Lord  of  lords." 

But  if  that  proclamation  is  to  be  heard  on  tho 
housetops,  it  must  first  be  spoken  in  the  ear  in 
closets.  It  must  come  forth  as  the  interpretation 
and  fulfilment  of  this  prayer,  "  Forgive  us  our  tres- 
passes, as  we  forgive  them  who  trespass  against  us." 
We  must  thoroughly  believe  and  understand  that 
what  seems  to  be  a  limiting  condition  of  the  request, 
is  really  an  enlargement  of  its  scope  and  power.- 
We  ask  to  be  forgiven,  and  the  revelation  of  God's 


86  SERMON  VI. 

mercy  in  Christ,  of  the  love  which  is  in  Himself,  of 
the  perfect  atonement  made  once  for  all,  is  an  an- 
swer. It  seems  to  be  transitory ;  we  try  to  fall 
back  upon  it,  and  feel  that  that  which  we  trusted 
in  yesterday  is  not  so  strong  to-day.  Why?  Be- 
cause we  asked  too  little,  because  we  did  not  enter 
into  the  fulness  of  the  word,  "Remit,"  "Send 
away."  If  we  had,  we  should  have  prayed  not  for 
a  momentary  sense  of  Forgiveness,  but  for  the 
spirit  of  Forgiveness ;  not  merely  that  we  may 
know  what  God  is  and  is  to  us,  but  what  He  can 
accomplish  in  us  ;  that  we  may  understand  in  Him 
and  show  forth  in  ourselves  that  mercy  which  is  no 
tolerance  of  wrong  but  the  tormentor  of  it,  which 
does  not  reject  stern  discipline,  but  makes  it  an  in- 
strument; which  is  a  fire  to  consume  the  evil  of  all 
in  whom  it  dwells,  of  all  to  whom  it  reaches.  For- 
giveness is  not  forgiveness  when  it  is  turned  to 
our  ease  and  comfort.  It  is  in  its  nature  expan- 
sive, diifusive ;  it  cannot  be  cooped  up  in  the  heart 
of  any  creature ;  it  must  go  forth  into  the  open 
air,  or  it  dies.  The  debts,  we  know  it  well,  cannot 
lose  their  penal  hold  upon  the  conscience,  their 
present  and  future  terror,  till  love  comes  in  to  ful- 
fil them  and  transfer  them  ;  till  the  man  who  in  his 
pride  thought  that  all  nations  owed  him  homage, 
learns  to  say,  "/am  a  debtor  to  Jew  and  Greek, 
to  Barbarian  and  Scythian,  to  bond  and  free." 
The  sense  of  sin — sin  itself — does  not  finally  depart 
from  the  conscience  till  love,  its  great  enemy,  pos- 
sesses the  ground  which  it  once  occupied,  till  he 
who  was  crushed  under  the  sense  of  powerlessness 


LEAD  US  NOT  INTO  TEMPTATION.       87 

and  evil — "  To  will  is  present  with  me,  but  liow  to 
perform  that  I  will  I  find  not,"  can  exclaim,  "He 
worketh  in  us  both  to  will  and  to  do  of  His  good 
pleasure,"  and,  "I  can  do  all  things  through 
Christ  which  strengtheneth  me." 

Wherefore,  as  it  should  be  one  of  our  saddest 
subjects  of  confession  this  Lent  that  we  have  not 
lived  as  if  we  were  under  the  Law  of  Forgiveness 
which  God  has  established  for  us  and  for  all,  so  also 
let  us  earnestly  believe,  whensoever  we  pray,  that 
we  are  praying  to  a  Forgiving  and  Merciful  Father, 
who  'can  yet  do  for  us  more  than  we  ask  or  think ; 
even  inspiring  us  with  His  own  love,  and  enabling 
us  to  walk  in  love  and  to  forgive  all  who  are  in- 
debted to  us,  as  He  for  Christ's  sake  hath  forgiven 
us. 


SERMON  VII. 


®l)irb  Sunban  in  Cent,  i^Xavcl)  2(5,  \B\B. 


And  lead  us  not  into  temptation. — Matt.  vi.  3. 

I  SAID  that  the  words  of  our  Lord,  "  It  is  written, 
Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every 
word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God," 
were  a  ground  for  the  petition,  "  Give  us  this  day 
our  dail}^  bread."     Lent,  above  all  seasons,  might 


88  SERMON  VII. 

teach  us  the  sense  and  power  of  it.  "  Forgive  us 
our  debts,  as  we  forgive  our  debtors,"  had  surely 
as  close  a  connexion  with  these  forty  days.  To  be 
delivered  from  a  heavy  burden,  this  is  the  blessing 
of  confession :  a  blessing  which  (as  the  prophets  so 
often  told  the  Jews)  we  cannot  realize  by  any 
prayer  or  fast  unless  we  seek  to  set  others  free 
from  their  burdens.  The  subject  of  Temptation 
might  seem,  even  more  than  either  of  these,  to  em- 
brace* the  whole  history  and  purpose  of  this  time  in 
its  relation  both  to  our  Lord  and  to  ourselves.  But 
here  a  difficulty  presents  itself.  We  are  told  by 
the  Evangelist,  that  our  Lord  was  "  led  up  by  the 
Spirit  into  the  wilderness  to  be  tempted  of  the 
Devil."  We  are  taught  to  pray,  "Do  not  lead  or 
bring  us  into  temptation."  Must  we  not  infer 
from  this  opposition,  that  there  is  not  that  close  re- 
semblance between  His  struggles  and  ours  which 
we  have  sometimes  imagined ;  that  our  spiritual 
life  is  not  under  the  same  law  as  His ;  that  we  are 
to  deprecate  that  kind  of  trial  to  which  He  cheer- 
fully submitted? 

There  are  some,  perhaps,  who  will  not  feel  even 
the  semblance  of  perplexity  here.  They  will  say, 
"  Certainly ;  there  are  multitudes  of  perils  into 
which  it  was  fitting  for  the  Son  of  God  to  enter, 
and  which  it  would  be  madness  for  his  followers  to 
encounter.  He  stood  in  the  might  of  his  impecca- 
ble divine  nature ;  hoAV  can  sinners,  nay,  even 
mere  human  creatures,  if  they  were  not  sinners, 
ever  forget  their  own  readiness  to  fall  ?"  Persons 
who  use  this  language  cannot  be  aware  what  prac- 


LEAD  US  NOT  INTO  TEMPTATION.        89 

tical  heresies  they  are  uttering,  how  completely 
they  are  demolishing  the  whole  intent  of  the  Gospel, 
the  very  ground  of  man's  trust  and  hope.  If  there 
are  some  parts  of  our  Lord's  example  that  we  are 
not  to  follow,  what  authority  is  to  tell  us  which? 
Does  not  the  assertion  that  He  stood  by  the  strength 
of  a  nature  in  which  we  are  not  sharers,  exclude 
us  as  much  from  communion  with  one  of  his  acts 
as  with  another?  We  make  void  the  doctrine  of 
His  having  taken  our  nature :  it  is  too  little  to  say 
that  we  lessen  the  perfectness  of  the  relation;  it 
becomes  imaginary. 

And  surely  no  record  of  our  Lord's  life  is  so  en- 
tirely outraged  by  this  hypothesis  as  the  record  of 
His  temptation.  If  lie  had  asserted  an  independ- 
ent standing  ground,  He  would  have  listened  to 
the  words  of  the  Tempter.  He  would,  because  He 
was  the  Son  of  God,  have  made  the  stones  bread, 
have  cast  Himself  from  the  pinnacle  of  the  temple, 
have  taken  to  Himself  the  Kingdoms  of  the  world 
and  the  glory  of  them.  He  refused  to  do  this,  He 
would  simply  stand  by  faith  and  dependence  on  his 
Father ;  thus  and  thus  only  would  He  assert  his 
filial  character.  He  did  put  Himself  upon  a  level 
with  those  whom  He  called  His  brethren  ;  He  did 
claim  for  them  a  right  to  depend  as  He  depended, 
to  trust  as  He  trusted.  Dependence  and  trust  are 
not  inconsistent  with  the  condition  of  creatures  who 
are  human,  and  who  have  sinned.  Because  we  de- 
pend and  trust  so  little,  we  prove  that  we  are  still 
trying  to  be  gods — tJiat  is  our  sin.  Just  so  far  as 
we  depart  from  our  Lord's  example,  we  show  our 


90  SERMON  VII. 

pride,  not  our  Immilitj,  our  self-confidence,  not  our 
fear  of  ourselves. 

The  prayer  then  cannot  be  justified  on  this  plea ; 
it  cannot  bear  a  construction  which  "would  make  it 
a  separation  between  the  creatures  who  offer  it, 
and  Him  in  whose  name  it  is  offered. 

Indeed,  if  we  reflect,  we  shall  perceive  that  such 
a  notion  of  it  would  be  as  much  at  variance  with 
what  we  know  of  ourselves,  as  with  what  we  believe 
of  Him.  Is  it  not  the  fact  that  we,  too,  are  led 
up  into  one  place  or  another — a  wilderness  or  a 
city — to  be  tempted?  Is  not  this  whole  life  of 
ours  one  continual  succession  of  temptations?  I 
say,  advisedly,  of  Temptations:  for  we  shall  gain 
little,  I  think,  by  changing  that  word  for  '''■trials,'' 
as  if  every  trial  did  not  of  necessity  involve  a  temp- 
tation. When  we  speak  of  undergoing  "trials," 
we  do  not  mean  merely  "troubles;"  we  mean  that 
in  some  Avay  or  other  we  are  proved,  that  we  have 
an  opportunity  given  us  of  doing  wrong  or  right. 
When  we  speak  of  Temptation,  we  look  at  the  same 
fact  from  another  side ;  we  wish  to  indicate,  not ' 
merely  that  we  have  the  good  and  evil  set  before 
us,  but  that  there  is  a  power  biassing  us  to  the  evil. 
But  this  is  implied  in  either  form  of  expression. 
And  therefore,  if  we  suppose  that  God  has  brought 
us  into  this  world,  and  that  we  are  dwelling  in  it 
under  His  guidance,  and  that  all  trials  are  ordained 
by  Him;  we  must  suppose  that  He  just  as  much 
intended  us  to  be  tempted  as  He  intended  His  Son 
to  be  tempted.  If  we  make  out  a  difference,  we  do 
it  wilfully.  Our  consciences,  and  Scripture,  equally 
oppose  the  attempt. 


LEAD  US  NOT  INTO  TEMPTATION.       91 

But  why  then  shoukl  we  pray,  '■'■Lead  us  not 
into  temptation?"  I  answer,  Because  this  and  no 
other,  is  the  prayer  which,  if  we  believe  the  Scrip- 
ture account  of  our  Lord's  forty  days  in  the  wil- 
derness, He  must  himself  have  prayed  at  the  very 
time  when  He  was  led  up  to  be  tempted,  and  when 
He  was  going  through  the  Temptation.  His  first 
act  of  dependence  and  obedience  was  to  go  whither- 
s.oever  He  was  led;  not  to  choose  His  oircum- 
stances  for  himself;  to  be  equally  ready  for  the 
desert  or  the  market-place.  His  second  act  of  de- 
pendence was  in  the  desert  or  market-place,  in  the 
full  sight  and  foresight  of  the  temptations  which 
beset  him  to  say,  "Father,  bring  me  not  into 
them."  And  the  prayer  was  heard.  That  wicked 
one  touched  Him  not.  The  Tempter  had  no  power 
over  him,  not  because  he  exalted  himself  in  his  own 
strength,  but  because  He  would  not  exalt  himself 
in  it;  because  in  all  things  He  glorified  Him  whose 
will  he  came  on  earth  to  do.  It  may  seem  a  sub- 
tle and  shadowy  distinction  to  make;  and  subtle 
and  shadowy  must  all  verbal  distinctions  be  which 
concern  the  Will  and  its  acts.  If  you  would  real- 
ize the  distinctions  which  words  try  to  embody,  you 
must  turn  to  facts.  Then  you  will  find  how  sub- 
stantial are  these  subtleties ;  that  in  them  lies  all 
the  difi'erence  between  the  best  and  the  worst  man  ; 
between  an  angel  and  a  devil.  To  be  incapable  of 
temptation  is  the  privilege  of  involuntary  creatures ; 
a  man,  or  an  angel  dares  not  desire  it.  So  long 
as  he  feels  who  it  is  that  has  made  him  capable  of 
such  (L'.ngor,  who  has  given  him  a  will,  he  is  safe; 


92  SERMON  VII. 

for  Ills  life  is  a  prayer  that  lie  may  not  be  left  to 
his  own  guidance.  The  moment  he  ceases  to  oifer 
that  prayer  he  is  brought  into  temptation,  he  comes 
under  the  Tempter's  power;  because  he  has  lost 
trust  and  allegiance  and  claimed  independence. 
Then  he  tries  to  say  that  he  was  tempted  by  God ; 
but  he  is  conscious  that  he  lies  ;  he  knows  that  his 
act  was  one  of  submission  to  another  than  God, 
that  it  was  a  secret  defiance  of  him.  He  had  a 
right  to  believe  that  God  placed  him  in  the  circum- 
stances which  his  own  will  has  made  destructive  ; 
but  that  belief,  if  he  had  hallowed  the  Name  of 
God,  if  he  had  cried,  "  Thy  will  be  done  on  earth, 
as  it  is  in  heaven,"  would  have  been  a  security 
against  the  Temptation ;  it  would  have  given  him 
confidence  to  cry,  "  Thou,  Father,  art  leading  me ; 
bring  me  not  into  this  temptation,  but  through  it." 

The  deflections  and  eccentricities  then  which  sin 
has  introduced  into  our  lives  do  not  make  the  life 
of  our  Lord,  which  exhibits  to  us  humanity  in  its 
orderly  state,  in  its  perfect  harmony,  a  less  prac- 
tical standard;  on  the  contrary,  they  oblige  us  to 
look  for  such  a  standard :  we  cannot  measure  or 
interpret  our  own  acts  without  it.  In  the  sunlight 
of  His  history,  our  relations  to  the  Father,  and  to 
all  which  opposes  Him,  stand  out  clearly  and  dis- 
tinctly revealed ;  though  it  is  only  in  prayer  and 
in  action  that  we  can  fully  appropriate  the  lesson, 
and  feel  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus  to  be  also  a  truth 
in  us. 

However  strange  it  may  be  to  affirm  that  God 
is  leading  us  every  day  into  some  circumstances  of 


LEAD  US  NOT  INTO  TEMPTATION.  93 

temptation,  and  that  here  lies  the  very  strength 
and  warrant  of  the  prayer  that  he  will  not  bring 
us  into  it — will  not  suffer  our  enemies  to  prevail 
against  us  ;  we  can  boldly  adopt  that  paradox,  and 
find  the  blessing  of  it  in  all  ordinary  events  and  in 
all  terrible  emergencies.  Riches,  we  know,  are 
temptations :  poverty,  we  know  equally,  is  a  very 
great  one.  The  king  in  the  Proverbs  was  judicious 
in  desiring  a  mean  ;  but  therein  too  lies  a  peril  of 
its  own :  a  kind  of  secure  hardness,  self-indulgence 
comforting  itself  with  the  assurance  that  it  is  not 
luxury,  the  rich  and  the  poor  man's  sins  both  re- 
garded with  abhorrence  because  they  interfere  with 
us  and  because  there  is  no  knowledge  of  either. 
What  wild  pride  and  recklessness  there  is  in  the 
sense  of  health  !  how  miserably  are  those  deceived 
who  fancy  that  a  sick  bed  is  in  itself  a  cure  for  na- 
tural infirmities,  and  not  an  aggravation  of  them 
and  an  excuse  for  them  !  What  selfishness  is  there 
in  possession,  but  oh !  how  it  turns  inward,  how 
gnawing  it  becomes  in  the  hour  of  deprivation  and 
loss !  Various  gifts  and  endowments  we  speak  of 
as  full  of  danger,  and  yet  the  man  in  the  Gospel 
hid  his  talent  in  the  earth  because  he  had  only  one. 
The  physician,  lawyer,  divine,  may  each  suspect 
that  the  other  has  some  especial  means  of  useful- 
ness, some  exemption  from  evils  which  he  has  felt ; 
but  the  heart  knows  its  own  bitterness ;  not  one  of 
them  is  wrong  in  saying  that  his  position  is  full  of 
snares ;  and  that  what  seem  to  the  on-looker  secu- 
rities are  really  dangers.  If  the  busy  man  is  every 
day  tempted  to  worship  the  idola  fori,  how  many 


94  SERMON  VII. 

idola  specus  are  there  ■wliicli  continually  seduce  the 
contemplative  man  from  his  allegiance  !  How  easy 
it  is  for  monks  to  bring  evidence  that  marriage 
makes  the  soul  less  free;  how  utterly  they  fail 
when  they  would  praise  the  safety  of  celibacy  ! 
When  the  characters  of  those  who  are  bound  toge- 
ther are  unsuitable,  what  irritation  and  restless- 
ness ;  if  they  perfectly  accord,  what  fear  that  each 
may  confirm  that  which  is  wrong  in  the  other ! 
How  free  from  all  debate  and  turmoil  the  halls  of 
philosophy  may  be  thought  by  one  who  has  only 
known  the  region  of  politics ;  sometimes  men  escape 
from  both  for  security  to  the  religious  world,  and 
find  that  there  they  are  in  the  midst  of  more  fierce 
and  implacable  contentions. 

The  last  discovery  seems  appalling.  Can  reli- 
gious habits,  a  religious  atmosphere,  tempt  us  into 
evil,  into  falsehood,  into  Atheism?  Experience 
answers,  Yes !  It  tells  us  not  only  that  no  sect, 
no  Church,  is  free  from  these  dangers,  but  more, 
that  sects  and  even  Churches  directly  or  implicitly, 
by  the  idolatries  or  self-righteousness  which  they 
encourage,  or  by  the  reaction  against  them,  by  pious 
frauds,  or  the  unbelief  which  follows  upon  their  de- 
tection, may  lead  us  into  utter  ruin.  It  is  most 
necessary,  in  our  day  especially,  to  know  that  fact, 
and  to  keep  it  in  our  recollection.  There  may  be 
a  Protestantism,  a  Catholicism,  a  Christianity  with- 
out a  God;  all  that  sounds  most  religious,  all  that 
really  is  full  of  deepest  worth,  of  divinest  meaning 
— confessions,  ordinances,  the  Bible — may  be  used 
to  make  us  in   practice   and  ultimately  in    theory, 


LEAD  US  NOT  INTO  TEMPTATION.  95 

deniers  of  Him  from  whom  they  have  proceeded  and 
of  AYhom  they  speak.  Where  then  lies  the  securi- 
ty ?  In  this,  that  He  is,  that  He  lives,  and  that  in 
one  condition  or  another  we  are  still  led  by  Him. 
Into  what  perils  soever  we  have  come,  into  what 
perils  soever  we  may  come,  let  us  be  sure  it  was 
not  the  Evil  Spirit,  but  God  himself  who  ordered 
the  whole  frame  and  condition  of  our  lives,  and  that 
this  frame  and  condition  is  not  the  worst  but  the 
best  possible  for  us,  the  best  possible  though — yea, 
because — it  is  one  of  tremendous  temptation.  Let 
us  be  equally  sure  that  He  is  not  our  tempter ;  that 
He  never  tempted  any  man  to  evil ;  that  we  fall 
into  it  only  when  we  think  He  is  not  with  us  to 
deliver  us  from  it ;  that  to  think  so  is  to  believe  a 
lie ;  that  at  all  times,  and  in  all  possible  states,  this 
is  a  right  and  true  prayer  which  He  inspires  and 
which  He  hears,  "Bring  us  not  into  temptation." 
Those  old  words,  "  The  Lord  is  my  Shepherd,  there- 
fore can  I  want  nothing.  He  prepareth  a  table  for 
me  in  the  midst  of  mine  enemies,  though  I  walk 
through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  thou 
art  with  me,  thy  rod  and  thy  staff  they  comfort 
me ;"  these  words  have  lasted  three  thousand  years, 
and  they  are  just  as  living  and  as  good  now  as  they 
ever  were  ;•  as  adapted  to  the  temptations  of  every 
Englishman  in  the  19th  century  as  to  those  of  David. 
The  words  "Lead  us  not  into  Temptation,"  are 
of  the  same  kind ;  equally  reminding  us  that  we  are 
in  the  midst  of  enemies,  that  we  may  have  to  pass 
through  a  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  through  a 
state  of  utter  darkness;  equally  telling  us  that  there 


96  SERMON  VII. 

is  One  wlio  provides  us  a  table  now,  and  Avill  be 
with  us  then.  But  it  is  a  prayer  which  goes  down 
more  deeply,  for  He  taught  his  disciples  to  use  it, 
for  whom  the  table  had  been  prepared  in  the  wil- 
derness where  there  was  no  bread,  but  only  stones ; 
who  was  Himself  to  pass  through  the  valley  of  the 
shadow  of  death,  and  to  feel  all  that  can  be  felt  of  de- 
sertion and  solitude  there.  He  bids  us  say,  "Lead 
US  not  into  Temptation,"  assuring  us  that  God  is 
not  merely  the  Shepherd  over  each  lonely  man,  when 
passing  through  hours  and  days  of  gloom  and  doubt 
and  anguish  which  no  other  creature  knows  of,  but 
that  He  is  also  the  Guide  of  the  whole  flock,  of  his 
own  Church  upon  earth,  and  of  the  great  Human 
family,  out  of  darkness  into  His  marvellous  light. 
"Lead  wsnot  into  Temptation,"  said  He  v/ho  is  the 
Head  of  the  whole  body,  intimating  that  though  it 
consists  of  many  members,  and  each  has  its  own 
special  trial,  which  would  not  be  precisely  such  a 
one  to  any  other — though  it  often  seems  as  if  this 
were  the  greatest  hardship  and  misery  of  all,  that 
sorrow  is  incommunicable,  that  each  person  under- 
stands so  little  of  his  neighbour's, — yet  in  spite  of 
this  seeming  diversity  and  solitude,  there  is  the 
most  intimate  relation  between  all  the  parts  of  the 
body,  that  what  affects  one,  of  necessity  affects 
all.  We  know  it  to  be  so,  and  in  our  different 
ways  express  the  conviction.  We  talk  of  family 
likenesses,  of  national  feelings,  of  a  particular  age 
having  its  characteristic  tendencies,  its  own  special 
good  and  evil.  The  observation  of  these  sympa- 
thies is  one  of  the  necessary  rpialifications  for  con- 


LEAD  US  NUT  INTO  TEMPTATION.       97 

versing  with  men  and  describing  their  acts ;  we  m ay- 
have  made  comparatively  small  progress  in  the  in- 
quiry, but  all  confess  it  to  be  real  and  full  of  interest. 
Our  hearts  bear  witness  to  the  Scripture  assertion, 
that  we  have  a  common   Tempter  and  a  common 
Deliverer ;  that  all  things,  though  made  instruments 
of  one,  are  yet  actually  and  truly  the  instruments 
of  the  other;  that  there  must  be  such  a  cry  from 
all  hearts  as  this,  and  that  it  must  be  the  most 
helpful  and  uniting  of  all  cries:  "Lead  us  not  into 
Temptation."     0  strange  and  mysterious  privilege, 
that  some  bed-ridden  woman  in  a  lonely  garret, 
•  who  feels  that  she  is  tempted  to  distrust  the  love  and 
mercy  of  Him  who  sent  His  Son  to  die  for  the  help- 
less, should  wrestle  with   that  doubt,  saying  the 
Lord's  Prayer ;  and  that  she  should  be  thus  asking 
help  for  those  who  are  dwelling  in  palaces,  who 
scarcely  dream  of  want,  yet  in  their  own  way  are 
in  peril  as  great  as  hers;   for  the   student,  who  in 
his  chamber  is  haunted  with  questions  which  would 
seem  to  her  monstrous  and  incredible,  but  which  to 
him  are  agonizing;   for  the   divine  in  his  terrible 
assaults  from  cowardice,  despondency,  vanity,  from 
the  sense  of  his  own  heartlessness,  from  the  shame 
of  past  neglect,  from  the  appalling  discovery  of  evils 
in  himself  which  he  has  denounced  in  others,  from 
vulgar  outward  temptations  into  which  he  had  proud- 
ly fancied  that  he   could  not  fall,  from  dark  sug- 
gestions recurring  often,  that  words  have  no  reali- 
ties corresponding  to  them,  that  what  he  speaks  of 
may  mean  nothing  because  to  him  it  has  often  meant 
so  little.     Of  all  this  the   sufferer  knows  nothing, 
9 


9S  SERMON  VII. 

yet  for  these  she  prays — and  for  the  statesman 
■who  fancied  the  world  could  be  moved  by  his  wires, 
and  suddenly  finds  that  it  has  wires  of  its  own  which 
move  without  his  bidding;  for  her  country  under 
the  pressure  of  calamities  which  the  most  skilful 
seek  in  vain  to  redress;  for  all  other  countries  in 
their  throes  of  anguish  Avhich   may  terminate  in  a 
second  death  or  a  new  life.     For  one  and  all  she 
cries,    "Lead    us    not  into    Temptation."      Their 
temptations  and   hers,  different   in   form,  are  the 
same  in  substance.     They,  like  her,  are  tempted 
to  doubt  that  God  is,  and  that  He  is  the  Author  of 
good,  and  not  of  evil ;  and  that  He  is  mightier  than 
the  evil ;  and  that  He  can   and  will  overthrow  it, 
and  deliver  the  universe  out  of  it.     This  is  the  real 
temptation,  there  is  no  other.     All  events,  all  things 
and  persons,  are  bringing  this  temptation  before  us ; 
no  man  is  out   of  the  reach  of  it  who  is  in   God's 
"vrorld;  no  man  is  intended  to  be  out  of  the  reach  of 
it  who  is  God's  child.     He  himself  has  led  us  into 
this  wilderness  to  be  tempted  of  the  devil ;  we  can- 
not fly  from  it;  we  cannot  find  in  one  corner  of  it 
ft  safety  which  there  is  not  in  another ;  we  cannot 
choose  that  we  shall  not   have   those   temptations 
which  are  specially  fitted  to  reach  our  own  feelings, 
tempers,  infirmities ;  they  will  be  addressed  to  these ; 
they  will  be  aimed  at  the  heel  or  the  head,  at  what- 
ever part  has  not  been  touched  by  the  fire,  and  is 
most  vulnerable.     We  must  not  crave  quarter  from 
the  enemy:  to  choose  for  ourselves  where  we  shall 
meet  him,  is  to  desert  that  guardianship  in  which  is 
jiU  safety.     But  we  may  cry,  "Lead  us  not  into 


LEAD  US  NOT  INTO  TEMPTATION.       99 

Temptation:"  and  praying  so,  we  pray  against  our- 
selves, against  our  evil  tendencies,  our  eagerness 
for  that  which  will  ruin  us.  Praying  so,  that  which 
eeemed  to  be  poison  becomes  medicine;  all  circum- 
stances are  turned  to  good;  honey  is  gathered  out 
of  the  carcass  ;  death  itself  is  made  the  minister  of 
life. 

Away  then  with  that  cowardly  language  which 
some  of  us  are  apt  to  indulge  in  when  we  speak  of 
one  period  as  more  dangerous  than  another;  wheu 
we  wish  we  were  not  born  into  the  age  of  revolu- 
tions; or  complain  that  the  time  of  quiet  belief  ia 
passed,  and  that  henceforth  every  man  must  ask 
himself  whether  he  has  any  ground  to  stand  upon, 
or  whether  all  beneath  him  is  hollow.  We  are  fall- 
ing into  the  temptation,  when  we  thus  lament  over 
it.  We  are  practically  confessing  that  the  Evil 
Spirit  is  the  Lord  of  all ;  that  times  and  seasons 
are  in  his  hand.  Let  us  clear  our  minds  from  every 
taint  of  that  blasphemy.  God  has  brought  us  into 
this  time ;  He,  and  not  ourselves  or  some  dark  demon. 
If  we  are  not  fit  to  cope  with  that  which  He  has 
prepared  for  us,  we  should  have  been  utterly  unfit 
for  any  condition  that  we  imagine  for  ourselves. 
In  this  time  we  are  to  live  and  wrestle,  and  in  no 
other.  Let  us  humbly,  tremblingly,  manfully  look 
at  it,  and  we  shall  not  wish  that  the  sun  could  go 
back  its  ten  degrees,  or  that  we  could  go  back  Avith 
it.  If  easy  times  are  departed,  it  is  that  the  diffi- 
cult times  may  make  us  more  in  earnest ;  that  they 
may  teach  us  not  to  depend  upon  ourselves.  If 
easy  belief  is  impossible,  it  is  that  we  may  learn 


100  SERMON  vin. 

what  belief  is,  and  in  -vyliom  it  is  to  be  placed.  If 
an  hour  is  at  hand  which  will  try  all  the  inhabitants 
of  the  earth,  it  is  that  we  may  learn  for  all  to  say, 
"  Lead  us  not  into  the  Temptation"  of  our  times ; 
that  so  we  may  be  enabled  with  greater  confidence 
and  hope  to  join  in  the  cry  of  every  time,  "Deliver 
us  from  EviL" 


SERMON  VIII. 


i^ourtl)  Sunban  in  Cent,  OVpril  2, 184S. 


Deliver  us  from  evil. — Luke  xi.  4. 

When  a  man  prays,  "Lead  us  not  into  Tempta- 
tion," he  prays  against  himself;  prays  that  he  may 
not  go  where  he  has  an  inclination  to  go ;  prays 
that  neither  he  nor  his  brethren  may  have  what 
they  have  a  false  taste  for,  even  though  God's  hand 
seems  to  oifer  it  them.  Such  a  prayer,  till  we  know 
something  of  ourselves,  something  of  his  purpose 
in  placing  us  here,  must  needs  appear  strange  and 
perplexing.  Is  not  the  one  which  follows  it  alto- 
gether different;  the  simplest,  most  spontaneous 
utterance  of  the  heart;  one  which  all  the  world  has 
been  pouring  forth;  which  we  should  certainly  have 
learnt,  though  no  one  had  taught  it  us? 


DELIVER  US  FROM  EVIL,  101 

It  VTould  be  idle,  indeed,  to  deny  the  universalitj 
of  this  prayer.  Wherever  men  are  visited  by  any 
storm,  or  fire,  or  earthquake;  wherever  they  are 
plagued  with  any  bodily  sickness ;  wherever  they 
are  oppressed  by  their  fellow-men ;  wherever  they 
have  a  vague  sense  of  being  crushed  by  fortune ; 
wherever  they  have  learnt  to  look  ujDon  custom  or 
law  as  an  incubus ;  wherever  they  are  stifled  by  sys- 
tems ;  wherever  they  are  conscious  of  a  remorse  which 
stays  with  them  and  moves  with  them  ;  there  is  a  cry 
ascending  to  some  poAver,  known  or  unknown,  "  De- 
liver us  from  Evil."  The  question  what  evil  is,  and 
whence  it  comes,  is  for  such  sufferers  of  easy  solution : 
they  know  well  what  they  mean  by  it;  they  know 
or  guess  generally  what  brought  it  to  them ;  at  all 
events  it  has  overtaken  them.  They  may  suppose 
that  some  fellow-creature  can  rescue  them  from  it, 
or  chance,  or  themselves;  they  may  look  to  the 
physician,  the  priest,  the  legislator ;  to  alterations 
in  government;  to  new  dispositions  of  property; 
to  a  friendly  executioner  ;  to  suicide.  But  a  deli- 
verer there  must  be;  something  or  some  person  to 
hope  in.  If  once  we  believe  evil  to  be  omnipotent, 
or  suppose  that  it  was  intended  for  us,  and  we  for 
it,  I  do  not  think  it  is  possible  to  conceive  of  hu- 
man society  or  human  life.  Recollect  the  worship 
of  every  country  you  ever  heard  of,  how  many 
names  and  characteristics  of  the  different  divini- 
ties had  relation  to  deliverance  of  some  kind,  or  to 
the  averting  or  avenging  of  wrong.  If  you  took 
these  away  from  the  mythologies,  you  would  find 
that  there  remained  a  mere  caput  moriuuin ;  HI 
9* 


102  SER.Mox  viir. 

that  had  heUl  them  together  and  appealed  to  hu- 
man trust  and  sympathies  Avoukl  have  escaped. 

Now  it  wouki  surely  be  a  very  hard  and  Stoi- 
cal doctrine  to  proclaim  that  what  these  different 
creatures  of  our  flesh  and  blood  have  cried  to  be 
saved  from,  were  not  really  evils,  but  only  certain 
conditions  of  existence,  which  they  fancied  to  be 
such.  No  one,  I  should  think,  can  imagine  that  he 
served  truth  by  maintaining  such  a  proposition 
against  the  sense  of  mankind,  and  against  the  wit- 
ness of  his  own  heart.  That  from  which  men  have 
revolted  as  utterly  unnatural  and  inconsistent  and 
unreasonable,  that  which  they  have  felt  to  be  in 
positive  disagreement  with  their  constitution,  they 
have  a  right  to  call  an  evil  ;  and  all  the  theories, 
political,  philosophical,  religious,  in  the  world,  can 
never  deprive  them  of  the  right.  Nor  can  these 
theories,  so  far  as  I  see,  prove  even  the  most  ex- 
travagant hopes  that  our  race  has  indulged  to  be 
utterly  vain  and  delusive ;  or  take  from  any  man 
the  right  to  seek  deliverance  from  human  helpers, 
kings,  lawgivers,  shepherds  of  the  people,  from  his 
own  strong  arm,  from  invisible  helpers,  from  some 
fate  that  is  higher,  sterner,  more  inflexible  than  all 
other  powers.  There  was  a  warrant  for  all  such 
hopes,  even  for  hope  from  the  last  resource  of  self- 
destruction.  We  have  no  right  to  take  away  such 
refuges  until  we  can  provide  a  better ;  and  it  is  at 
least  probable  that  if  a  better  be  found,  we  shall 
find  some  explanation  of  all  the  rest. 

We  may  readily  grant  them,  not  only  that  the 
prayer  has  been  offered  in  all  places  and  in  all 


DELIVER  US  FROM  EVIL.  103 

ages,  but  that  in  all  places  and  in  all  ages  a  deep 
truth  has  been  expressed  in  it.  But  do  we,  there- 
fore, say  that  the  prayer  had  no  need  to  be  taught, 
that  it  sprang  up  naturally  in  the  mind  of  man 
without  any  inspiration  from  above,  that  it  was 
not,  like  the  former,  the  petition  of  a  man  against 
himself,  but  altogether  one  from  and  for  himself? 
I  rather  think  the  evidence,  if  it  is  well  considered, 
will  lead  us  just  to  the  opposite  conclusion ;  that 
the  prayer  was,  in  all  eases,  taught  and  inspired 
from  above ;  that  what  was  contributed  to  it  by  the 
natural  heart  of  man  in  his  different  circumstances 
and  positions,  was  the  false,  confused  element  of 
it,  that  which  narrowed  its  scope  and  divided  its 
object;  that  in  its  true  sense  and  purport  it  is  in 
perfect  accordance  with  the  cry  against  temptation  ; 
that  He  who  imparted  it  to  men  in  the  old  time, 
was  He  who  gave  it  to  His  disciples  in  its  clear- 
ness and  purity,  in  its  length  and  breadth,  when 
He  said,  "After  this  manner,  therefore,  pray  ye: 
Our  Father — deliver  us  from  evil." 

I.  Other  portions  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  have  led 
me  to  remark,  that  there  is  a  fearful  tendency  in 
us  all,  which  has  infused  itself  most  mischievously 
into  our  theology,  to  look  first  at  our  necessity  or 
misery,  only  afterwards  at  our  relation  to  God,  and 
at  His  nature.  The  last  are  made  dependent  upon 
the  former.  We  are  conscious  of  a  derangement 
in  our  condition ;  simply  in  reference  to  this  de- 
rangement do  we  contemplate  Him  who  we  hope 
may  reform  it.  We  have  just  been  tracing  this 
process    in    heathenism,      A  mischief  is    felt;    if 


104  SERMON  viir. 

there  is  a  mischief,  there  must  be  a  deliverer.  Un- 
doubtedly the  conscience  bears  this  witness,  and  it 
is  a  right  one.  But  the  qualities  of  the  deliverer 
are  determined  by  the  character  or  locality  of  that 
which  is  to  be  redressed,  or  by  the  habits  of  those 
who  are  suffering  from  it.  From  this  heathenish 
habit  of  mind  the  Lord's  Prayer  is  the  great  pre- 
server. Say  first,  "Our  Father."  This  relation 
is  fixed,  established,  certain.  It  existed  in  Christ 
before  all  worlds,  it  was  manifested  Avhen  He  came 
in  the  flesh.  He  is  ascended  on  high,  that  we  may 
claim  it.  Let  us  be  certain  that  we  ground  all  our 
thoughts  upon  these  opening  words ;  till  we  know 
them  well  by  heart,  do  not  let  us  listen  to  the  rest- 
Let  us  go  on  carefully,  step  by  step,  to  the  Name, 
the  Kingdom,  the  Will,  assuring  ourselves  of  our 
footing,  confident  that  we  are  in  a  region  of  clear 
unmixed  goodness ;  of  goodness  which  is  to  be  hal- 
lowed by  us ;  which  has  come  and  shall  come  to 
us,  and  in  us ;  which  is  to  be  done  on  earth,  not 
merely  in  heaven.  Then  we  are  in  a  condition  to 
make  those  petitions,  which  we  are  ordinarily  in 
such  haste  to  utter,  and  which  He,  in  whom  all 
wisdom  dwells,  commands  us  to  defer.  Last  of  all 
comes  this  "Deliver  us  from  evil."  When  we  are 
able  to  look  upon  evil,  not  as  the  regular  normal 
state  of  the  universe,  but  as  absolutely  at  variance 
with  the  character  of  its  Author,  with  His  consti- 
tution of  it,  with  the  Spirit  which  He  has  given  to 
us,  then  we  can  pray,  attaching  some  real  signifi- 
cance to  the  language,  Deliver  us  from  it.  Then 
we  shall  understand  why  men  looked  with  faith  to 


DELIVER  rS  FROM  EVIL.  105 

the  aid  of  their  fellow-men ;  to  princes,  and  chief- 
tains, and  lawgivers,  and  sages.  They  were  sent 
into  the  world  for  this  end,  upon  this  mission. 
They  were  meant  to  act  as  deliverers.  They  were 
to  he  witnesses  of  a  real  righteous  order,  and  to 
resist  all  transgressors  of  it.  We  can  understand 
why  strong  men  felt  that  they  had  better  act  for 
themselves,  than  depend  upon  foreign  help.  For 
the  Father  of  all  put  their  strength  into  them,  that 
they  might  wield  it  as  His  servants  in  His  work ;  it 
was  His  Spirit  who  made  them  conscious  of  their 
strength,  and  of  that  purpose  for  which  they  were 
to  use  it.  We  can  see  why  these  hopes  were  so 
continually  disappointed,  though  they  had  so  right 
a  foundation ;  why  they  were  driven  to  think  of 
higher  aid,  of  invisible  champions,  because  those 
upon  the  earth  proved  feeble,  or  deserted  the  cause, 
and  served  themselves.  It  is  true  that  the  hosts 
of  heaven  are  obeying  that  Power  which  the  hosts 
of  earth  are  commanded  to  obey;  that  they  are 
doing  His  service  by  succouring  those  who  are  toil- 
ing below;  it  is  true,  because  He  who  rules  all  is 
not  a  destiny,  but  a  loving  will ;  not  an  abstraction, 
but  a  Person ;  not  a  mere  sovereign,  but  a  Father. 
All  creation  is  ordered  upon  this  law  of  mutual  de- 
pendence and  charity ;  but  it  is  only  in  the  know- 
ledge and  worship  of  the  Highest,  that  we  can  ap- 
prehend the  places  and  tasks  of  the  lower ;  when 
He  is  hidden,  these  are  forgotten  ;  society  becomes 
incoherent:  nothing  understands  itself;  every  thing 
is  inverted ;  the  deliverer  is  one  with  the  tyrant ; 
evil  and  good  run  into  each  other;  we  invoke  Satan 


lOG  SERMON  VIII. 

to  cast  out  Satan.  See,  then,  -what  a  restorative, 
regenerative  power  lies  in  this  prayer  !  See  what 
need  there  was  that  the  Son  of  God  should  come 
from  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  to  make  men  know- 
that  they  were  not  orphans,  to  show  how  they  might 
be  in  fact,  and  not  merely  in  idea,  children ! 

II.  For  now  it  is  not  any  longer  by  this,  or  that 
man,  or  unseen  power,  by  this  or  that  subordinate 
agency,  by  this  or  that  alteration  of  events  and 
circumstances,  that  we  are  forced  to  bound  our 
plans  and  prospects  of  deliverance.  We  have  not 
to  work  our  way  upwards  by  stairs  winding,  broken, 
endless,  to  an  indefinite  shadowy  point,  which  we 
are  afraid  to  reach,  lest  it  should  prove  to  be  no- 
thing. We  begin  from  the  summit ;  we  find  there 
the  substance  of  all  the  hope  men  have  drawn  from 
the  promising,  but  changeable,  aspects  of  the  cloud- 
land  below;  we  see  that  all  the  darkness  of  earth, 
all  its  manifold  forms  of  evil,  have  come  from  the 
rays  being  intercepted,  which  would  have  scattered 
it  and  shall  scatter  it  altogether.  Therefore  we 
pray  boldly,  "Deliver  us  from  evil,"  knowing  as- 
suredly that  we  are  praying  to  be  set  free  from 
that  to  which  the  will  of  the  Creator  is  opposed, 
and  against  which  all  the  powers  of  the  universe 
are  engaged:  that  which  all  natural  things,  doing 
Him  quiet  homage,  are  punishing;  that  against 
which  all  voluntary  creatures  by  the  law  of  their 
being  are  pledged  to  co-operate.  We  are  praying 
against  that  which  men  have  not  been  praying 
against  in  vain  for  six  thousand  years,  but  rather 
Avhich  they  have  been  stemming,  overcoming  con- 


DELIVER  US  FROM  EVIL.         107 

tlnually ;  each  of  their  prayers,  if  offered  in  ever 
so  much  dimness  and  confusion,  opening  a  vista  out 
of  the  darkness,  because  each  of  them  derived  its 
first  impulse  from  Him,  Avho  through  them  and  in 
answer  to  them  was  preparing  the  full  discovery  of 
Himself,  and  of  that  strength  whereby  all  that  re- 
sists Him  shall  be  broken.  I  say  the  prayer  of- 
fered with  this  recollection,  becomes  one  full  of 
cheerfulness  and  confidence.  The  difficulty  is,  to 
offer  it  in  that  recollection.  God  forbid  that  I 
should  speak  lightly  of  that  difficulty!  knowing 
how  great  it  is;  how  hard,  when  evil  is  above,  be- 
neath, within,  when  it  faces  you  in  the  world,  and 
scares  you  in  the  closet,  when  you  hear  it  saying 
in  your  own  heart  and  saying  in  every  one  else, 
"Our  name  is  Legion,"  when  sometimes  you  seem 
to  be  carrying  the  world's  sins  upon  yourself,  and 
then  forget  them  and  yourself  altogether, — which 
is  worse,  and  brings  a  heavier  sense  of  misery 
afterwards, — when  all  schemes  of  redress  seem  to 
make  the  evil  under  which  the  earth  is  groaning 
more  malignant,  when  our  own  history,  and  the  his- 
tory of  mankind,  seem  to  be  mocking  at  every 
effort  for  life,  and  to  be  bidding  us  rest  contented 
in  death ;  oh,  it  is  hard,  most  hard,  to  think  that 
such  a  prayer  as  this  is  not  another  of  the  cheats 
and  self-delusions  in  which  we  have  worn  out  exist- 
ence !  But,  courage !  if  the  evil  were  less  press- 
ing, we  might  have  leisure  to  doubt  the  remedy ; 
when  all  possibilities  are  exhausted,  we  begin  to 
understand  that  here  is  certainty :  we  must  believe 
on  some  ground  or  other  that  evil  is  not  absolute, 


108  SEiiMuN  viir. 

not  victorious ;  we  must  believe  it  honestly,  and 
without  a  trick,  not  pretending  that  it  is  nothing, 
when  we  feel  inwardly  that  it  is  only  not  all.  And 
we  can  believe  it  honestly  with  our  whole  hearts, 
while  we  say,  "Our  Father,  deliver  us  from  the  evil." 
Then  that  which  seemed  so  terrible,  because  it  was 
so  manifold,  is  condensed  into  one ;  it  means  in  all 
its  forms  that  which  is  opposed  to  the  mind  and 
will  of  Him,  who  so  loved  the  world,  as  to  give 
His  only-begotten  Son,  that  we  might  be  His 
children,  and  brethren  one  of  another. 

III.  This  truth,  that  evil,  though  by  its  nature 
multiform  and  contradictory,  has  nevertheless  a 
central  root,  our  Lord  teaches  us  by  His  temptation 
in  the  wilderness,  and  again  by  the  prayer,  "De- 
liver us  from  the  evil."  He,  for  the  first  time, 
made  it  fully  evident  that  mankind  has  not  merely 
enemies,  but  an  Enemy;  that  neither  the  various 
external  torments  which  seem  to  make  up  evil,  nor 
the  desires  and  appetites  of  the  man  himself,  upon 
which  we  often  charge  it,  create  or  constitute  the 
mystery  of  iniquity  which  is  at  work.  Most  blessed 
was  this  discovery;  it  justified  the  thoughts  which 
had  been  in  a  number  of  hearts;  it  justified  the 
ways  of  God.  I  said  that  the  Stoical  denial  of 
external  evil  is  an  artificial  doctrine,  at  war  with 
conscience  and  reason.  Our  Lord  never  for  a  mo- 
ment yielded  to  it ;  He  acknowledged  palsies,  and 
hunger,  and  leprosies,  to  be  plagues  and  curses 
from  which  men  should  seek  deliverance.  But  he 
did  at  the  same  time  explain  wherein  the  truth  of 
Stoicism  lay.     He  showed  that  these  suff'erings  arc 


DELIVER  US  FROM  EVIL.  109 

t\ot  the  evils  of  man ;  they  belong  to  a  wrong  con- 
dition, but  they  are  not  the  causes  of  it ;  nay,  their 
sting  may  be  taken  out  of  them,  they  may  become 
instruments  for  the  cure  and  destruction  of  evil. 
He  himself  underwent  them ;  He  felt  them  as  none 
ever  felt  them;  so  He  showed  that  men  are  in- 
tended to  feel  them.  He  exhibited  love  and  mercy 
in  them,  and  through  them ;  so  He  showed  that  they 
are  not  the  masters  of  the  will ;  that  they  may  be 
its  servants.  Equally  does  He  prove  that  the  good 
things  of  life,  the  riches  and  beauty  of  the  uni- 
verse, are  not  the  origin  of  its  evils,  as  men  have 
wickedly  imagined ;  and  if  not,  then  that  the  de- 
sires and  appetites  of  our  heart,  which  correspond 
to  these,  and  which  they  address,  are  not  the  origin 
of  evil,  and  carry  in  them  no  necessary  corruption. 
And  yet  He  brings  the  sense  of  evil  nearer  to  us 
than  it  was  ever  brought  before ;  He  explains  by 
His  words,  by  His  life,  why  we  must  feel  that  evil 
to  be  actually  bound  up  with  ourselves,  why  it  is 
the  most  diflScult  of  all  things  not  to  identify  it  with 
ourselves.  For  He  by  bidding  us  deny  ourselves, 
He  by  giving  up  Himself  in  every  thought  and  act. 
He  by  presenting  Himself  as  the  one  great  Sacri- 
fice to  the  Father,  makes  us  perceive  that  the  set- 
ting up  of  self,  the  worship  of  self,  is  tJie  evil  from 
which  all  others  flow,  from  which  we  are  to  pray, 
"Deliver  us."  Here  is  the  wonderful  Gospel- 
mystery  which  meets  all  the  mysteries  of  our  own 
hearts  and  of  the  world,  and  expounds  them.  Here 
is  that  which  makes  that  last  refuge  of  man  in  self- 
murder  intelligible.  It  is  self  he  wants  to  get  rid 
10 


110  SERMON  VIII. 

of;  he  has  sought  evil  elsewhere,  and  not  found  it; 
he  has  it  in  his  own  being;  that  must  perish.  What 
a  sense  of  solicitude  must  be  in  the  spirit  before  it 
can  dream  of  such  an  act !  what  a  feeling  that  all 
which  it  has  seen  without  is  centred  within  !  And 
yet  what  it  feels  in  that  hour,  all  the  world  is  feel- 
ing in  a  measure :  this  self  is  the  curse  of  each,  as 
much  as  it  is  his.  Oh !  if  he  could  rise  for  a  mo- 
ment to  that  perception,  if  he  could  feel  "It  is  not 
/,  it  is  the  spirit  of  self-will,  who  is  counterfeiting 
me ;  it  is  this  from  which  I  must  be  delivered,  it  is 
this  from  which  my  race  must  be  delivered  !  That 
each  may  be  himself,  that  the  universe  may  be  what 
the  Lord  of  all  created  it  to  be ;  this  must  be  over- 
come for  each,  for  all."  With  what  a  new  and 
wonderful  feeling  would  he  then  turn  to  the  words, 
"Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  which  taketli  away  the 
sins  of  the  world!"  "Lo,  I  come,  (in  the  volume 
of  the  book  it  is  written  of  me,)  to  do  thy  will,  0 
God:  thy  law  is  within  my  heart ; "  and  to  this, 
"  By  the  which  will  we  are  sanctified,  through  the 
oiFering  of  the  body  of  Christ  once  for  all."  Such 
words  may  have  seemed  hitherto  quite  vague,  the 
fragments  of  an  obsolete  theology.  Seen  in  the 
light  of  this  discovery  respecting  the  nature  of  Evil, 
seen  in  the  light  of  that  other  more  glorious  dis- 
covery respecting  the  infinite  charity  of  God,  how 
they  harmonize  with  all  that  our  hearts  had  pro- 
phesied of,  with  our  consciousness  that  we  have  ca- 
pacities of  sympathy  and  fellowship,  which  are  de- 
stroyed by  self-will ;  with  the  conditions  of  a  world, 
created  for  brotherhood,  destroyed  by  the   same 


DELIVER  US  FROM  EVIL.  Ill 

self-will.  How  little  a  man,  who  has  learnt  this 
lesson,  wishes  any  more  to  resolve  the  evil  spirit 
into  the  feelings  and  passions  of  the  individual 
heart !  How  he  abhors  such  implicit  practical  Mani- 
cheeism,  against  which  Christ's  temptation,  and  the 
history  of  His  redemption,  extending  as  it  does  to 
every  thought  and  movement  and  appetite  of  our 
souls  and  bodies,  as  well  as  to  the  whole  outward 
universe,  is  the  protest!  Hoav  he  must  rejoice  to 
think,  "I  can  pray,  I  will  pray.  Deliver  us  from 
the  evil.  I  will  pray  to  the  Father  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  against  myself,  against  my  inclination 
to  make  self  the  object  of  my  existence,  of  my 
worship,  against  every  act  and  thought  which  in- 
volves that  inclination.  I  will  pray  to  Him,  whose 
w^ill  is  that  I  should  be  in  submission  to  Him,  that ' 
I  should  be  His  servant  in  all  the  poAvers  and  af- 
fections of  my  spirit,  soul,  and  body ;  who  would 
use  all  these  for  the  manifestation  of  His  love,  for 
the  deliverance  of  His  creatures.  I  will  pray  to 
Him  in  the  confidence  that  He  has  accepted  the 
perfect  sacrifice  of  His  Son  for  me,  and  for  all  man- 
kind, the  sacrifice  which  He  had  himself  prepared, 
the  sacrifice  w^hich  was  the  fruit  and  perfect  setting 
forth  of  His  own  love,  the  sacrifice  which  was  pre- 
sented to  Him  by  the  Everlasting  Spirit.  I  will 
pray  in  the  confidence  that  He  will  receive  the  sa- 
crifice of  myself  and  of  all  to  Him  in  that  Name. 
I  will  pray  in  the  certainty  that  He  is  maintaining 
a  conflict  with  the  self-will  which  is  the  curse  and 
dislocation  of  the  world,  and  that  every  plague,  pes- 
tilence, insurrection,  revolution,  is  a  step  in  the  his- 


112  SERMON  VIII. 

tory  of  that  conflict,  tending  towards  the  final  vic- 
tory. I  will  pray  that  we  may  not  be  cast  down 
and  lose  faith,  because  change  after  change  only 
seems  to  bring  out  the  evil  more  fearfully,  to  ex- 
hibit some  darker  and  more  inward  form  of  it.  I 
will  pray  that  we  may  not  acquiesce  in  any  evil 
about  us,  or  within  us,  because  we  faiicy  that  a  worse 
might  come  from  its  removal.  I  will  pray  to  feel 
that  our  only  safety  is  in  the  God  of  truth  and 
love,  to  recollect  that  self-will,  as  its  different  veils 
and  bandages  and  rags  of  borrowed  finery  fall  off, 
must  be  displayed  more  nakedly  and  horribly ;  to 
give  thanks,  nevertheless,  that  its  resources  are 
nearly  exhausted,  that  its  rage  will  be  fiercest  when 
its  hour  is  shortest ;  to  make,  therefore,  no  truce 
with  it ;  to  wish  none  for  my  fellow-men ;  to  act 
and  live  in  the  confidence  that  if  we  wait  the  ap- 
pointed time,  the  travail-hour  of  creation,  He  who 
overcame  the  principalities  and  powers  of  evil  in 
the  wilderness,  in  the  city,  on  the  cross,  in  the  se- 
pulchre, and  who  ascended  on  high,  making  a  show 
of  them  openly,  will  fully  deliver  us  and  our  race 
from  them,  that  we  may  serve  without  fear  Him, 
the  Father,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  one  God, 
world  without  end." 


SERMON  IX. 


iTiftl)  Sttuban  in  Cent,  !:april  9, 184S. 


For  tliine  is  the  kingdom,  and  the  power,  and  the  glory,  for  ever. 
Amen. — Matt.  vi.  13. 

As  this  Doxology  occurs  in  only  one  Evangelist, 
the  Church,  in  her  repetitions  of  the  prayer,  omits 
it  at  least  as  often  as  she  uses  it.  The  idea  con- 
tained in  the  words  has  been  expressed  already;  it 
is  involved  in  all  the  petitions.  But  the  distinct 
utterance  of  it  at  the  close  of  the  prayer  teaches 
us  some  lessons  which  the  prayer  might  fail  to 
teach  us,  and  yet  which  we  must  always  remember 
if  we  would  say  it  truly. 

I.  The  words,  "  Thine  is  the  kingdom,"  certainly 
assume  that  it  is  not  ours.  Now  if  by  "  Kingdom  " 
we  understand  the  kingdom  of  Nature,  the  courses 
of  the  planets,  the  succession  of  day  and  night,  of 
seed-time  and  harvest,  perhaps  the  temptation  to 
say,  "  This  is  ours,"  may  not  be  very  great.  Some 
Opifex  Mimdi,  or  Intelligent  Principle,  or  Demi- 
urgus,  or  fixed  law,  may  be  admitted  to  preside 
over  these  arrangements.  But  if  we  apply  "  king- 
dom," as  I  suppose  most  of  us  would,  to  the  order 
and  conduct  of  human  society  generally,  or  in 
some  of  its  particular  divisions,  the  feeling  is  very 
10*    • 


114  SERMON  IX. 

different.  Here  we  have  a  claim  to  be  masters; 
over  this  order  man  exercises  a  most  evident  in- 
fluence. Is  there  any  thing  monstrous  in  the 
notion,  that  he  established  it,  and  that  he  upholds 
it  ?  There  can  be  nothing  strange  in  it,  for  we  all 
drop  into  it  most  easily  and  naturally.  True,  there 
are  old  forms  which  denote  a  belief  the  most  oppo- 
site of  this,  forms  which  indicate  that  the  highest 
ruler  of  the  land,  and  every  subordinate  magistrate, 
derives  his  authority  from  an  invisible  person,  to 
whom  he  is  under  a  fearful  responsibility  for  the 
fulfilment  of  his  duties.  The  recognition  of  an 
actual  King  of  kings,  and  Lord  of  lords,  of  one  not 
only  interfering  at  certain  crises  to  disturb  an  ex- 
isting monotony,  but  present  at  all  times,  the  real 
source  of  government,  through  whatever  hands  it 
may  be  administered, — this  recognition  enters  as- 
suredly into  the  institutions  and  laws  of  every 
nation  in  Christendom ;  I  might  say,  of  every 
nation  in  the  world.  But  we  have  become,  it  seems, 
convinced  that  these  witnesses  are,  as  to  their  real 
and  original  intent,  obsolete.  They  belong,  it  is 
said,  to  a  theocratic  period  of  the  world's  history ; 
when  that  had  passed  away  they  lingered  still,  and 
are  even  now  not  without  their  use  in  enforcing 
obligations,  the  true  ground  of  which  cannot  be  ap- 
prehended by  the  people  at  large,  in  giving  an  his- 
torical sacredness  and  mystery  to  that  Avhich  Avould 
else  seem  a  creature  of  the  present,  in  sustaining 
the  force  of  laws  by  sympathies  and  affections,  by 
the  terrors  or  hopes  of  another  world.  But  all 
these  explanations  and   apologies  clearly  assume, 


FOR   THINE  IS  THE  KINGDOM.  115 

that  the  schemes  for  upholding  society,  be  they  re- 
ligious or  secular,  are  of  our  creation ;  that  society 
itself  is.  Some  would  throw  a  decent  veil  over  its 
origin  ;  some  would  lay  bare  the  savage  contests, 
victories  of  cunning  and  terror,  contests  of  the 
weak  many  and  the  strong  few,  out  of  which  it 
arose ;  som.e  would  find  a  resting-place  in  the  phy- 
sical conformation  and  mental  temperament  of  dif- 
ferent races ;  ultimately,  the  great  majority  of  those 
who  think  for  themselves,  and  of  those  who  are 
thought  for,  subside  into  the  conclusion,  that  man 
is  an  absolute  sovereign  over  his  own  social  rela- 
tions ;  or,  at  all  events,  that  there  is  merely  a  re- 
served right  dwelling  with  some  other  power,  which 
in  ordinary  calculations  hardly  needs  to  be  taken 
into  account.  It  may  happen,  undoubtedly,  that 
this  claim  of  sovereignty  assumes  a  shape  which 
we  find  startling.  We  may  be  suddenly  required 
to  recognise,  not  the  abstract  phantom,  but  the 
practical  exercise  of  popular  supremacy.  Then 
when  we  begin  to  observe,  that  whenever  that  which 
is  in  conception  so  sublime  takes  a  concrete  form, 
it  is  a  very  coarse  and  very  narrow  one ;  the  most 
ignorant  part  of  some  city  or  district  embodying 
the  great  idea.  We  may  begin  to  ask.  Whether 
that  which  seems  to  be  the  highest  achievement  of 
liberty  does  not  involve  a  perpetual  alternation  of 
despotism  and  servility ;  whether  that  which  is  the 
last  and  highest  effort  of  reason  does  not  lead  to 
incessant  contradiction  ?  Such  expressions  may 
be  true,  such  doubts  amply  justified,  but  do  not 
they  come  too  late  ?    Have  we  not  already  admitted 


IIG  SERMUN    IX. 

the  principle,  sanctioned  the  contradiction?  If 
this  ultimate  sovereignty  resides  in  any  creatures, 
surely  there  must  be  a  law  of  gravitation  which 
will  make  it  settle  at  last  where  we  dread  to  think 
that  it  is  settling  now.  That  law  cannot  for  ever 
be  resisted  by  mere  prescription,  or  tricks  of  di- 
plomacy, or  arms  which  may  lose  their  edge  and 
change  their  object;  or,  lastly,  by  spiritual  influ- 
ences which  we  resort  to  for  a  purpose,  which  we 
wish  to  be  effectual  for  others  but  can  trifle  with 
ourselves.  Surely  all  these  things  must  come  to 
naught ;  all,  that  is  to  say,  which  interposes  be- 
tween us  or  any  country,  and  the  abyss  of  self- 
willed  mob  dominion,  if  these  words  which  we  utter 
so  often  have  not  a  reality  in  them  above  all  re- 
alities, a  depth  beneath  all  depths.  "Yours,"  says 
our  Lord,  "is  not  the  kingdom,  though  you  may 
be  called  to  sit  down  in  it,  and  occupy  honourable 
places  in  it ;  though  each  of  you  has  some  place  in 
it ;  some  work  and  ofiice  assigned  you  by  the 
Great  King,  a  rule  over  a  portion  of  his  subjects. 
Yours  is  not  the  kingdom ;  nor,  as  so  many  of  you 
come  to  think,  when  all  your  plots  have  failed,  and 
you  are  desperate  of  overcoming  evil  and  estab- 
lishing good  in  your  fashion,  is  it  the  Devil's  king- 
dom. He  claims  it;  he  says  to  you,  as  he  said  to 
Me,  '  It  is  mine,  and  I  give  it  to  whomsoever  I 
will.'  On  the  strength  of  that  assertion  he  bids 
you,  as  he  bade  me,  fall  doAvn  and  Avorship  him. 
He  asks  you  to  trafiic  with  him  for  the  means  of 
regenerating  your  fellow-creatures,  and  getting  the 
kingdom  out  of  his  hands.      But  you  can  answer 


FOR  THINE  IS  THE  KINGDOM.        117 

liim  as  I  ans^Yered :  'It  is  written,  Tlioii  slialt 
worship  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  Him  only  shalt 
thou  serve.'  You  can  say,  '  Thine  is  the  kingdom ; 
thine  it  is  now;  not  thine  it  shall  be  hereafter. 
Thine  it  is  who  art  our  Father,  and  hast  called  us 
to  be  thy  children.  Thine  it  is,  whom  we  have 
asked  according  to  thy  will  to  deliver  us  from 
evil.' " 

Now,  my  brethren,  in  making  this  ascription,  wo 
do  not  affirm  Theocracy  in  the  sense  which  some 
persons  give  to  that  word,  and  wdiich  may  well  have 
made  it  hateful.  We  do  not  say,  "  Thine  is  the 
kingdom,"  meaning  that  it  belongs  not  really  to. an 
invisible  Father,  but  really  to  certain  visible  priests, 
who  claim  the  homage  due  to  Him  for  themselves, 
and  bring  men  into  bondage  by  the  perversion  of 
that  truth  which  is  alone  able  to  set  them  free. 
We  do  not  mean,  according  to  the  Filmer  and 
Sacheverel  doctrine,  that  the  divine  power  is  trans- 
ferred to  certain  visible  kings,  in  whom  it  rests  ab- 
solutely and  indefeasibly.  We  do  not  mean,  ac- 
cording to  the  fifth-monarchy  teachers,  that  this 
kingdom  resides  in  a  certain  body  of  saints  whom 
God  has  authorized  to  claim  the  world  as  their 
possession.  All  these  doctrines  we  should  reject, 
not  as  exaggerations,  but  as  evasions ;  not  more  for 
their  folly  than  for  their  profaneness.  If  the  words, 
"Thine  is  the  kingdom,"  are  true  words,  priests, 
kings,  saints,  must  say  as  much  as  any,  yea,  more 
than  any:  "It  is  not  ours.  We  exist  only  to  tes- 
tify whose  it  is,  only  to  bring  all  whom  we  can 
reach  Avithin  the  experience   of  its  blessedness." 


118  SERMON  IX. 

Thej  are  to  make  it  manifest  that  their  consecra- 
tion is  not  a  falsehood ;  that  all  the  services  bj  which 
we  hallow  our  civil  acts  are  not  horrible  mockeries ; 
that  all  the  forms  of  human  discourse  which  uncon- 
sciously witness  of  a  divine  order  and  government, 
need  not  for  the  sake  of  honesty  be  cast  out  of  it, 
till  it  is  reduced  to  little  more  than  the  chattering 
of  savages.  They  are  to  declare — we  all  of  us, 
brethren,  are  pledged  by  our  baptismal  vows,  to 
declare, — that  there  is  an  actual  eternal  ground 
for  what  we  have  treated  as  fictions,  for  what  men 
declare — and  declare  rightly  if  we  could  by  our  lie 
make  God's  truth  of  none  effect, — to  be  worn-out 
fictions.  We  are  bound  to  afiirm,  that  a  Fatherly 
kingdom  is  established  in  the  world;  that  to  be 
members  of  it  is  our  highest  title,  and  that  the 
bego-ars  of  the  land  share  it  with  us :  that  in  it  the 
chief  of  all  is  the  servant  of  all ;  that  under  Him 
all  may  in  their  respective  spheres  reign  according 
to  this  law ;  that  all  ranks  and  orders  stand  upon 
this  tenure,  and  are  preserved  or  overturned  by 
their  honour  or  contempt  for  it ;  that  all  ofiices, 
the  highest  and  lowest,  have  hence  their  responsi- 
bility and  dignity;  that  this  kingdom  has  its  highest 
rule  in  the  human  will,  and  its  secret  impulses  and 
determinations ;  that  it  reaches  to  the  most  trifling 
acts  and  words ;  that  not  one  of  the  suffering  myriads 
in  a  crowded  city  is  forgotten  by  him  who  is  its 
Ruler,  any  more  than  one  of  the  spirits  of  just  men 
made  perfect ;  that  when  all  the  subordinate  vassals 
of  the  kingdom  shall  confess  their  dependence  upon 
Ilim,  shall  know  that  lie  is,  and  shall  feel  towards 


rOR  THINE  IS  THE  KINGDOM.  119 

those  who  are  beneath  them  and  to  one  anotlier  as 
He  feels  towards  them,  then  His  kingdom  which  is 
now,  will  indeed  have  come  in  power. 

II.  And  so  it  shall  come ;  for  Thine  is  the  Power. 
Different  words  from  the  last,  however  closely  allied 
to  them ;  and  I  think  harder  words  to  say  in  per- 
fect sincerity.  Here  we  are  not  limited,  as  in  the 
other  case.  We  were  obliged  to  confess  that  we 
did  not  call  the  Kingdom  of  Nature  into  existence. 
But  we  do  put  forth  a  great  and  notorious  power 
over  that  kingdom ;  men  can  say,  with  much  appa- 
rent justification,  "  Ours  is  the  power,"  even  there. 
Accordingly  they  did  say  it.  The  students  of  Na- 
ture went  forth,  like  the  Persian  king,  with  the 
chains  wherewith  to  bind  her,  with  the  magical 
sounds  which  were  to  make  her  do  their  biddings. 
But  then  the  humbling  maxim  was  proclaimed,  which 
has  been  the  foundation  of  all  real  discovery  and 
victory  in  this  department:  "  Man,  the  servant  and 
interpreter  of  Nature,  knows  nothing,  can  do  no- 
thing, except  what  he  has  first  observed  in  her." 
All  the  boastings  to  which  two  centuries  of  won- 
derful success  might  have  given  birth  are  stopped 
by  the  recollection,  that  obedience  to  this  canon 
has  been  the  single  secret  of  success,  that  any  one 
who  would  resist  it,  and  determine  to  conquer  with- 
out stooping,  has  gone  away  discomfited.  Nature, 
even  when  she  seems  most  confessing  the  dominion 
of  man,  is  saying  with  all  her  voices,  "Yours  is  not 
the  power ;  you  are  learners,  interpreters,  receivers ; 
you  can  use  the  strength  which  you  have  first  asked 
for,  that  is  all." 


120  SERMON  IX. 

Yet  how  wide  a  field  remains,  if  this  is  denied 
us !  Ours  is  surely  the  power,  in  some  way  or 
other,  to  affect  our  fellow-men.  There  is  the  direct 
power  which  lies  in  relationship ;  station,  age,  the 
power  of  outward  attractions ;  the  power  of  wealth; 
the  power  of  conversation ;  the  power  of  moving 
crowds  by  speech ;  the  power  of  written  words  and 
of  song ;  these,  with  all  the  innumerable  subtle 
mysterious  agencies  which  are  only  known  in  their 
operation.  Surely,  whatever  may  be  said  of  the 
objects  to  which  these  powers  are  directed,  their 
existence  must  be  admitted.  It  cannot  be  said 
that  they  are  not  put  forth  by  human  beings,  that 
they  are  not  human  powers.  Can  it  be  pretended 
that  they  would  be  in  any  respect  better  if  they 
were  less  vigorous,  that  there  is  in  power  itself  an 
inherent  curse  ?  Such  a  proposition  would,  I  be- 
lieve, be  a  denial  as  great  as  there  can  be,  of  the 
truth  which  this  ascription  affirms.  But  upon  this 
point  experience  has  its  own  testimony  to  bear, 
which  must  be  listened  to,  and  which  cannot  be  at 
variance  with  that  which  comes  from  any  true  au- 
thority. These  exercises  of  power  do  not  only 
bring  with  them  pain,  which  might  be  easily  under- 
stood, but  after  them  disappointment.  And  this 
not  only  when  the  end  sought  for  has  been  mean, 
but  when  it  has  been  glorious ;  when  it  has  been 
the  triumph  over  wrong  and  the  setting  up  of  right. 
A  bitter  wail  is  heard  again  and  again,  that  weak 
insignificant  men  do  the  Avork  of  the  world,  and 
that  those  who  could  do  it  arc  kept  back  or  crushed ; 
a  wail  which  they  who  make  it  are  half  ashamed 


FOR  THINE  IS  THE  KINGDOM.  121 

of,  but  wliicli,  nevertheless  they  cannot  suppress. 
The  thing  that  was  aimed  at  is  not  achieved;  hope- 
less obstacles  from  the  force  of  circumstances,  and 
the  ignorance  of  mankind,  are  said  to  stand  in  the 
way.  What  is  stranger  still,  those  in  whom  no 
power  is  apparent,  who  are  not  conscious  of  its  ex- 
istence in  them,  are  seen  to  exert  it ;  the  meek  peo- 
ple whom  the  world  does  not  regard,  whom  the  men 
of  power  have  been  used  to  look  upon  with  scorn, 
effect  what  they  cannot;  at  some  time  or  other  that 
influence  reaches  even  them  and  overmasters  them. 
Strange  facts,  but  recurring  continually,  making 
up  the  history  of  mankind  !  How  can  they  be  ex- 
plained ?  They  are  not  explained,  I  think,  to  any 
person  who  has  much  vaunted  of  his  own  powers, 
till  he  is  led  to  perceive  that  man,  the  servant  and 
student  of  the  ways  of  God,  knows  nothing  in  morals, 
can  do  nothing  in  influencing  his  fellow-men,  except 
what  he  hath  first  perceived  in  Him  after  whose 
image  he  is  formed.  In  other  and  much  better 
words  he  learns  to  say,  "  Thine  is  the  power.  Thine 
are  all  those  powers  which  I  have  found  in  myself 
and  called  mine.  From  Thee  they  came,  by  Thee 
they  must  be  sustained  and  directed.  That  per- 
petual restlessness  which  I  have  experienced,  which 
sometimes  made  me  curse  the  world,  sometimes 
myself,  sometimes  Thy  gifts,  was  the  effect  of  my 
claiming  that  which  did  not  belong  to  me,  trying 
to  wield  armour  which  was  too  weighty.  Those 
whom  I  'Complained  of  because  they  were  set  in 
high  places,  with  so  little  right  to  be  there,  were 
less  mischievous  than  I  should  have  been,  because 
11 


122  SERMOX  IX. 

they  did  less,  struggled  less,  and  left  more  rooiK 
for  Thy  working.  Those  whose  strength  I  was 
forced  to  admit,  though  naturally  I  despised  them^ 
might  have  fewer  powers  than  mine,  but  what  they 
had  were  submitted  to  Thee,  were  confessed  to  be 
Thine  ;  therefore  they  had  Omnipotence  with  them. 
And  now,  since  Thou  hast  taught  me,  by  sore  and 
tremendous  discipline,  that  I  cannot  strive  with 
Thee,  I  believe,  indeed,  that  Thine  is  the  power; 
the  power  to  make  this  will  comfortable  to  Thine; 
the  power  to  use  what  Thou  hast  endowed  me  with 
as  Thine  own ;  the  power  to  make  all  circumstances, 
which  have  no  virtue  of  their  own,  and  which  whether 
sad  or  happy,  may  be  my  plagues,  really  blessed; 
the  jjower  to  bring  order  out  of  the  chaos  within 
me ;  the  power  to  change  selfish  remorse  into  gra- 
cious repenta,nce ;  the  power  to  quicken  the  bodies 
of  Thy  saints,  to  restore  the  age,  to  renew  the 
earth,  to  subdue  even  all  things  to  Thyself." 

III.  For  lastly,  Thine  is  the  glory.  To  what 
is  this  Kingdom  tending?  What  is  to  be  accom- 
plished by  this  power?  "Though  we  admit,"  it  is 
often  said,  "that  there  is  some  Being  who  formed 
individuals  and  human  society,  and  who  is  continu- 
ally directing  both,  still,  if  we  hold  Him  to  be  a 
gracious  and  benevolent  Being,  we  cannot  conceive 
Him  to  have  any  object  but  the  happiness  or  well- 
doing of  His  creatures;  we  must  not  dream  that 
self-glory  is  ever  His  aim.  But  if  not,  then  surely 
the  blessedness  and  glory  of  humanity  may  be  our 
ultimate  aim,  we  need  not,  cannot  look  higher. 
This  statement  you  must  all  have  heard  frequently, 


FOR  THINE  IS  THE  KINGDOM.  123 

in  one  form  of  words  or  another,  and  we  shall  hear 
more  of  it  yet.     We  ought  not  to   overloook  the 
important  truth  which  is  contained  in  it,  or  to  be 
unthankful  for  the    confutation   it  contains  of  a 
deadly  doctrine  which  divines  have  been  too  ready 
to  propagate.     If  the  glory  be  His,  whom  we  have 
called  our  Father,  whose  Name  ayo  have  desired  to 
hallow,  whose  Kingdom  we  have  prayed  might  come, 
whose  Will  is  to  be  done  on  earth  and  in  Heaven, 
who  is  the  Giver  and  the  Forgiver,  who  guides  us 
through  temptation,  and  brings  us  out  of  evil;  we 
dare  not  believe  for  an  instant  that  it  is  a  Self-glory 
of  which  we  are  speaking.     It  must  be  that  which 
is  the  eternal  opposite  and  contradiction  of  Self- 
glory  ;  the  glory  of  a  Being  whose  name  and  nature 
is  Love.     That  such  a  Being  must  seek  the  good  of 
the  creatures  He  has  formed,  we  are  all  agreed. 
What  we  say  is,  that  He  would  not  be  seeking  the 
good  of  His  voluntary  creatures,  if  He  did  not  raise 
them  above  themselves  ;  if  He  did  not  give  them  a 
perfect  absolute  object  to  behold  and  to   dwell  in. 
Those  of  our  age  who  speak  so  much  about  the  glory 
of  humanity,  affirm  that  man  wants  no  such  object, 
or  cannot  attain  it  if  he  does.     Either  it  is  really 
the  satisfaction  of  all  his  wants,  or  else  the   only 
one  he  can  hope  for,  to  be  a  Narcissus,  ever  behold- 
ing his  own  beauty  and  becoming  more  and  more 
enamoured  of  it.     I  am  aware  that  many  who  use 
this  kind  of  language,  would  protest  strongly  against 
the  notion  that  a  man  becomes  necessarily  a  self- 
worshipper,  a  seeker  of  his  own  glory,  because  he 
seeks  the  glory  of  his  race  or  kind.     I  admit  the 


124  SERMON  IX. 

distinction ;  it  is  a  very  important  one.  What  I 
desire  earnestly  is,  that  they  would  ask  themselves 
how  it  may  be  practically  realized.  Humanity 
cannot  be  contemplated  merely  as  an  abstraction ; 
it  must  be  seen  in  some  one.  For  a  time  we  may 
choose  a  favourite  hero,  and  think  that  he  embodies 
all  we  covet  to  behold.  Imperfections  appear  in 
him,  or  he  does  not  meet  the  new  cravings  of  our 
mind;  he  is  discarded,  another  is  raised  up,  who 
has  a  shorter  reign.  "We  discover  that  we  must  not 
exalt  one  against  another ;  each  one  carries  in  him 
the  nature  of  all;  each  man  has  that  nature  very 
near  to  him.  A  great  and  wonderful  conviction  ! 
but  if  existing  alone,  sure  to  turn  into  that  state  of 
mind  which  I  just  now  spoke  of.  Around,  beneath, 
above,  the  man  finds  no  object  so  worthy  of  his 
delight,  admiration,  adoration,  as  himself. 

It  is  very  possible,  that  those  who  put  forth  a 
theory  which  justifies,  as  it  seems  to  us,  this  mourn- 
ful result,  are  not  practically  nearer  to  it  than  we 
are  who  denounce  it.  God  forbid  that  I  should  ex- 
aggerate their  danger,  or  our  safety !  I  believe 
that  we  are  one  and  all  haunted  by  this  tendency 
to  self-glorification  every  day  and  hour  of  our  lives ; 
that  no  religious  systems,  no  religious  practices, 
are  a  protection  against  it,  nay,  will,  if  we  trust  in 
them,  infallibly  lead  us  into  it.  It  signifies  not 
under  what  pretext,  philosophical,  political,  theolo- 
gical, we  build  altars  to  ourselves ;  the  worship  is 
in  all  cases  equally  accursed.  To  throw  down  these 
altars,  to  destroy  the  high  places  in  which  men  are 
burning  incense  to  divinities  that  will  prove  at  last 


FOR  THINE  IS  THE  KINGDOM.  125 

to  be  fouller  than  Belial  or  Moloeli ;  this  must  be 
our  work.  But  if  we  have  commenced  this  process, 
where  it  always  should  commence,  in  our  own  hearts, 
we  shall  know  that  we  can  only  drive  out  the  false 
by  turning  to  the  true.  It  is  only  God  who  can 
break  the  yoke  of  the  tyrants  under  whom  we  have 
fallen  from  forgetfulness  of  Him. 

Therefore  I  have  desired  that  we  should  medi- 
tate upon  the  prayer  of  our  childhood,  in  which  lies, 
I  believe,  the  charm  against  all  that  has  assaulted 
us  in  our  manhood.     Within  the  few  weeks  that  we 
have  been  considering  it,  as  many  events  have  been 
passing  before  us  as  might  fill  many  centuries ;  it 
has  seemed  to  meet  them  all ;   to  be  the  best  and 
fullest  language  in  which  we  can  express  our  fears, 
hopes,  longings,  for  ourselves,  our  nation,  the  world. 
We  have  not  found  that  the  wants  and  sorrows  of 
Humanity  were  forgotten  in  it,  because  it  begins 
from  a  higher  ground,  because  it  starts  from  a  Fa- 
ther, because  it  acknowledges  all  the  highest  and 
lowest  blessings  as  proceeding  from  Him.    If  we  be- 
lieve that  this  Father  beholds  Humanity  created,  re- 
deemed, glorified,  in  His  beloved  Son ;  if  we  believe 
that  in  that  Son  we  may  behold  it  and  behold  Him ; 
that  being  members  of  His  body  we  may  see  Christ 
in  each  and  Christ  in  all ;  we  cannot  think  less 
nobly  of  our  kind  than  those  who  do  shut  their  eyes 
to  the  facts  of  its  corruption  and  misery,  or  who 
will  not  acknowledge  that  this  corruption  comes 
from  our  refusal  to  retain  God  in  our  knowledge. 
If  we  believe  that  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  Spirit  of 
the  Father  and  Son,  is  given  to  us  that  we  may  be 


126  SERMON  IX, 

united  to  each  other,  that  we  may  be  fitted  for  all 
knowledge  and  all  love,  we  cannot  have  less  noble 
anticipations  of  that  for  which  man  is  destined  than 
those  who  speak  most  loudly  of  his  emancipation 
from  all  thraldom,  and  of  his  infinite  capacities. 
But  what  Ave  desire  for  ourselves  and  for  our  race — 
the  greatest  redemption  we  can  dream  of, — is  ga- 
thered up  in  the  words  "  Thine  is  the  glory."  Self- 
willing,  self-seeking,  self-glorying,  here  is  the  curse  : 
no  shackles  remain  when  these  are  gone  ;  nothing 
can  be  wanting  when  the  Spirit  sees  itself,  loses 
itself,  in  Him  who  is  Light,  and  in  whom  is 
no  darkness  at  all.  In  these  words  therefore  we 
see  the  ground  and  consummation  of  our  prayer ; 
they  show  how  prayer  begins  and  ends  in  Sacrifice 
and  Adoration.  They  teach  us  how  Prayer,  which 
we  might  fancy  was  derived  from  the  wants  of  an 
imperfect,  suffering  creature,  belongs  equally  to  the 
redeemed  and  perfected.  In  these  the  craving  for 
independence  has  ceased ;  they  are  content  to  ask 
and  to  receive.  But  their  desire  of  knowledge  and 
love  never  ceases.  They  have  awaked  up  after 
His  likeness,  and  are  satisfied  with  it;  but  the 
thought  "  Thine  is  the  glory,"  opens  to  them  a 
vision  which  must  become  wider  and  brighter  for 
ever  and  ever.     Amen. 


THE  END. 


on    Theoloqtcal  Semin,ifv-Speer 


1    1012  01058  6644 


